Once Upon a Wing
by SetsunaKou
Summary: A Gundam Wing style Fairy Tale, set in the Medieval times, of courageous princes, beautiful princesses, delicate fairies, noble kings, daring wizards, funny elves, mysterious nymphs and dangerous sorcerers.
1. Prologue

"Once Upon a Wing

Prologue

Once upon a time there lived a beautiful Princess in a shining castle. She was known throughout the land for not only her beauty and grace but also her kind and generous heart.

She was the beloved symbol of peace--both at home and in kingdoms abroad beyond the ivory sands and deep blue seas that kept the kingdom of Sanc held up on high. It was the well-cherished sacred land of peace, far separated from the world of conflict--of wicked magicians and sorcerers, of evil creatures--warlocks, harpies and dragons, and above all, the shores kept her purity, the Princess Relena, safeguarded from any would-be royal suitors who were attempting, and yet up till now, not succeeding to take her hand in marriage--to take her away from her adoring people.

The caring older brother kept her sheltered and protected from every would-be knight in shining armor to come her way from across the seas in search of her beauty. And now also from someone else--

That someone who would give his life for her Highness at any given second, whose heroism in battle was almost as famed as his ruler's beauty and purity--the Captain of her Royal Guard, the protector of the Kingdom, whose job was to personally see to the princess' protection--even if it meant his life, to never let her go...

That singular thought that was the sum total of one young man who had come up so quickly through the ranks of the (albeit in comparison to tales of other kingdoms' military prowess) small army of the peace-loving Sanc Kingdom.  
He indeed was a singular man as well. His arrival one fateful day not so long ago was quickly becoming legendary amongst the people of this good land.

One early morning, along with the ocean tide, he was washed ashore. Nameless, and devoid of a single memory, save for the awareness and the drive--the drive to kill the evil sea monster known in these parts as the hydra. It had crossed a distant ocean before him, attracted to the thriving life of Sanc's shores.

And this man had followed it here. He had passed the tempestuous waves of the sea on a craft only a starborn warrior of ancient folklore could have devised. For what lay before the cliffs and the white sandy shores of Sanc was impenetrable when the ocean decided it...

She had watched it all, on that memorable day. The Princess Relena had always been a star gazer herself. Every morning on the sandy beaches she watched the sun come up and the stars fade away, dreaming, wishing, hoping, that someday her prince would come...

Someday he would come riding over the horizon on a white winged horse, be the most handsome, most gallant, most romantic man in all the world and sweep her off her feet to his kingdom in the sky...

Perhaps those were only the dreams of a youthful girl. Or perhaps something else as the headstrong rebellion that caused her to dash on dainty white feet through the rushing sands straight to a lone boy who had been washed ashore. She gazed at him in longing.

Maybe today, he would be the one...

"Who are you? Are you hurt? Come to the palace with me. Someone will tend to your wounds--- Ahhh!" Relena's kind heart offers assistance to this mysterious newcomer but his rough hands bodily shove her away.

"Did you see it? Get away!" The forceful command and frightening flashing dark eyes was more than this lofty princess could bear. She took to her heels as ordered by this awful, rough boy. The tears blinked in her sensitive eyes, screaming to her that princes only do come riding in on white-winged horses, that they were always gallant, kind and gentle, caring of her feelings---and this mere lad covered in blood and dirt, was nothing more than a---

But from a ways trodden down the shoreline towards her home, Princess Relena had paused to turn at the ear-shattering, screeching roar that had come from whence she had just left behind.  
She watched in horror the visage of a three-headed sea dragon rising from the ocean depths. It's fanged teeth were about to make a lunge for the helpless boy below.

"Relena! Get back to the palace! Take the princess from here!" A barked order once again. And Relena almost sighs, if not for the excitement rushing through her veins. Her older brother races past her, protectively shoving her shoulders into that of a young guard under his command.

"NO! Milliardo!" Princess Relena's voice cries out in fear for her older sibling as she struggles against the guard tugging at her, his order given.

"We must rid Sanc's shores of all evil!" King Milliardo's booming voice could barely be heard above the melee of the three-headed hydra's screams. Drawing his broadsword, long platinum hair blowing in the sea wind heroically, the Kingdom's ruler selflessly marches into battle. He was fully prepared to give everything he had in order to protect the land that he loved--and his little sister, too...

But a fierce battle even as Sanc's small army gathers on the shore was not in the stars for today.

The young man who had travelled great distances to vanquish this evil creature had avoided its three-pronged and sharpened teeth attacks to this point and to the entire army's astoundment, along with the Princess' wide and shocked eyes--though he was bruised and bloodied and battered--he revealed a magical weapon of some sort. It was a forged piece of metal in an angular shape as never seen before on these shores--nor on any of this world for that matter.

It was a small bit of jewelry perhaps? A medallion of sorts? Hopefully it could cast an evil spell on the hydra and send it away back to the depths it came from?

BANG!

An ear-splitting explosion stems from the tiny article in the mysterious boy's hand. Every soldier stands in awe of the foreign warrior as, with precise aim, he defeats the three-headed hydra in one single blow to its one shared heart.

All three heads gave one final roar before sinking to the bottom of the sea it came from. Still standing there was the one single disheveled and bloodstained young man who had destroyed a feared creature that would have doubtlessly ravaged the land and the army of Sanc's soldiers who were armed only with the steel and bladed weapons of this world's humans.

Now this man, though not riding in on a white-winged horse, nor possessing the gallant and dashing romance Relena desired in a prince---perhaps he was still one as yet...

A prince from the stars...

Her "Heero"...

And so that was this heroic boy was so fittingly named. For he had none of his own--at least he didn't give his name to anyone. He didn't confide his name nor his past or where he came from to any of his fellow soldiers of the army he was then welcomed and embraced into as a hero.

And so that was what she named him. The princess, to her brother's concern and worry, requested the newcomer to be her bodyguard that her older brother had been insisting she have if she was intent on attending the much famed wedding of Relena's often visiting friend in the neighboring kindom of Aissur--the Princess Dorothy. She was marrying a foreign prince hailing from the isolated island of Noxas, whose kindness and gentleness was almost as famous as Dorothy's catty eyebrows and unfortunate jinx in reeling in a suitable suitor.

Many a royal heir and knight had been handpicked by her illustrious family for the infamous blonde vixen to wed---but before she even had the opportunity to marry them, let alone meet most of the daring princes and knights who were off on their death-defying missions -- they all, well...died.

One had caught a virus in an epidemic, one fell off a winged horse, and yet another had a bad case of turning to stone after taking one forbidden look at another evil-eyed woman.

Oh, well, there will always be another sucker--oh, I mean suitor--pardon me.

To take up the cursed cause of being betrothed to the Princess Dorothy. She didn't have a whim, a fancy or anything on the boring thoughts of love for a single one of them before their unfortunate demises, that is.

Golden Princess Dorothy far preferred the horse to its supposedly heroic rider. She was a great equestrienne herself. She had grown up under the tutelage of her beloved cousins--the Prince and King--to ever be amazed or awed by any mere mortal man other than them.

Who dared attempt to interfere with the utter adoration of a little girl she still had for her adored cousins? His Majesty, King Treize and His Royal Highness, Prince Trowa.  
Ever since she was old enough for them to sit her up on her faithful winged steed--atop her very own pegasus...

Besides, what could possibly make this suitor -- this Prince Quatre of the Isle of Noxas, any more special than the rest? We'll see just how worthy he proves to be of my beauty and my brilliance...

"We'll see if he lives long enough to make it to the wedding. Want to have a wager on it, hmmm, my beloved Pegasus?" With a loving caress around the neck of the white horse (a caress that no man ever deserved in her opinion), Princess Dorothy gives the golden reins a soft tug. She soon found herself soaring through the sky that no one could contain her lofty, wild spirit within.

High on the wind swept clouds, hovering over Aissur, the kingdom where the Pegasus roamed free and Princess Dorothy could accomplish anything--even conquer the world below from these dizzying, lofty heights.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Beneath the clouds that surrounded the enchanted world of Eixip lay a forest hidden amongst the thick trees. Indeed enchantment ruled this place where no one was permitted to enter--neither magic monster that lurked in dark shadows of the rest of the forest, nor woodland elves that would try their mischief on this land and make a playful attempt to cross the river of Op, that held guard over Eixip. The elf would end up all wet and fail miserably, turned away.

For the sacred waters were protected by a powerful nymph whose gentle spirit watched over the delicate beauty beyond the waters since time forgotten.

Keeping what lie inside this realm safe from fiery monsters and dangerous dragons, greedy dwarves in search of riches, of crystalline gold, mischievous elves and most of all--above all else--the nymph of the water named Sallie--was bound and determined to keep the sisterhood of five immortal fairies within under her motherly protection, safe and to the utmost--pure...

But as legend has it, though the spiritual warrior within Sallie shrinked from the memory--there was once a man who had made it through her defenses somehow. A single human who had done the impossible, Sallie thought.

She had all rule over magic and spells and bewitchment in the enchanted barrier she had erected over this glen.

This human had somehow communicated with a sister within. He had somehow lured her out of the safe confines of her home. This was a feat unbelieved for the Sisterhood of fairies were well known far and wide for their fearful skittishness to take to their fairy wings in flight at the mere glimpse of a stranger of any race. And especially of the unknown something not a single one of them had ever seen--nor been with--

A mortal man.

Sallie herself, powerful spirit of the water, could not believe she let her guard so down even as she slumbered in the deep river currents. Or was it that the man's power of persuasion was so intent even she could not shield the Sisterhood of Eixip from it?

Or perhaps was the beautiful golden blonde Fairy of Dreams, Leia, so enthralled and taken by the visage of the man across the blue river and what his dream was whispering to hers...

Whoever was at fault, the day had come and gone. The fairy had returned to her home, unharmed, with a dreamy look on her face, the subject of excitement of the other four sisters within the glen.

But Leia would not speak of her encounter, nor of her special visitor. But the way the once serious fairy would now dance on her light toes and sing about the crystal fairy palace told tales to those who knew her best.

She went with him of her own will. They all knew that as they had known before the evidence of the encounter came to bear forbidden fruit--their pure sister, Leia, had been with a man that day--and, as a result, was no longer immortal because she was no longer pure as the rest of them devoutly remained.

However, the curious among them wondered that, though she had lost her purity, she had undeniably gained something else. Something intangible and unreachable--beyond the touch of their own fairy hands...

Intangible--until the day yet one more sacred sister joined their fairy ranks. But this vivid, orange-haired sprite was not entirely theirs.

Yes, she had the fairy wings and whims of spriteness, but she had something more than the rest of them. For beating within her tiny chest was a half-human heart--along with the beautiful dreams of a man from long ago...

And so, one special fairy so named Mariemaia was born that day. But in the fairy world it takes the end of one living thing to bring forth a new, as the Fairy of Dreams Leia's pure heart understood and accepted.  
And she had gone to the world beyond, his smile and name still on her lips...

Treize...


	3. Chapter 2

**  
**Chapter 2

Lips stained red in her own blood are all she sees in the silver mirror the Sorceress Anne finds herself once again staring in.  
In a dark tower of an evil throne room, she has kept company with only that magic mirror and her own torrid thoughts. On occasion, her "uncle", the wicked Wizard Dermail, would make an appearance in the gloomy hall.  
His ominous footsteps would echo on the marble floors, leading up to his throne of carved dragon heads. The jeweled ruby red eyes atop the tall throne were staring evilly at anyone who dared to enter the Sorcerer's lair.  
The jewels were as starkly ruby crimson red as Sorceress Anne's crimson lips on her blood-drained face. Her dull brown hair was done up in tight braided buns that gave her the rigid look even as black lace pointed veils hung from her adorned in black jewels headdress.  
"What is you see in that magic mirror I bestowed upon you, Sorceress Anne?" Lord Dermail's weasily voice was always plotting its next wicked whim. Even as his evil-eyed gaze descends upon the woman staring intently in the lacquered black mirror held in her hands.  
"Nothing, my lord. Nothing but the darkness that pleases you." Anne's eyes, shielded behind the tiny framed glass spectacles that only those of vast mystical powers could conjure, held the power to see straight down into a person's soul. For no secrets could be kept from her once those fearful, evil eyes intensified through the forged jewelled dragon scale glass spectacles, were revealed.  
But secretly, deep inside her blackened soul, Anne was the one who feared the power of those dragon scaled glasses. The intense power of destruction and deceit they held frightened her. But moreover she feared what fed them, their evil power. It was channeled from her faded, empty eyes, from the desperate, despicable soul within her own being.  
She had grown up to be this wicked person--to be the student of her infamous uncle's evil powers when her own parents passed away.  
She was trained by him to leave behind the soul of the simple woman she was--to become the soulless sorceress she now is.  
Then why is it you continue to trifle with fancies of the outside world, my young apprentice?  
Dermail strokes his white beard as his wizened old eyes pick up intuitively even what his secretive niece was determined to hold back from him.  
Burning jealousies reach into the beauty she had none of--body nor soul. The world that lay below the rocky, thundering peaks of Nogard Mountain was what her glass mirror was continually trained upon. It was the glorious white clouds of the crystal blue skies into the thriving and rich land of Aissur where the legendary Pegasus roamed freely...  
"You will be there soon enough, my apprentice of evil. We will travel into the land of milk and honey, of flying pixies and white-winged pegasi. I share in your desire to conquer and weak and hold reign over them all--over all the lands of the unworthy below us! We will shut out every bit of their flaunted beauty and light and replace it with the darkness that comforts our souls, will we not, my warriors of evil?"  
Lord Dermail's eyes turn from the dulled ones of his apprentice to the fiery ones surrounding him. His generals of darkness who would bring down the rest of this world that once spurned his ultimate powers as a wizard.  
The world that would now see his might as a god-king, and they would bow at his feet. Once and for, they would be toppled from their lofty heights of grandeur by his pair of Chinese dragonmasters. Their aggressive dark eyes flash in agreement of power throughout the eerie dark throneroom.  
"Yes, sire." Evil laced voices answer in ominous unison in this, the lair of the dragons...


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Though the dark fire moutain in the distance was now beginning its rhythmic rumblings threateningly, some of those who called the green forests home paid absolutely no attention to the evil plots of invasion and the unending power struggle between good and evil.

Why bother of such silly worries? Life was made for having fun!

"48...49...50! Ready or not, here I come!" A high-pitched little voice sings out the chant of her favorite game. What enjoyment would there be without a friendly tournament of "Hide, go seek and tickle a magic apple" out of your partner? Hilde the elf never wanted to find out.

Taking to her soft-booted feet, she races to and fro. The dark, short-cropped hair elf girl gives her speeded up count a flourished finish and dashes into the depths of the shady, green leafed forest.

Elfland was always such a giddy place. Even under its sheltered cover of thick trees elves were much famed for their mischievous behavior--that and an insatiable curiosity. Both were characteristics which landed many a woodland elf into trouble and often worse in this dangerous and treacherous world where evil creatures (such as trolls, dwarves and centaurs) and magic monsters (like harpies, goblins and dragons) held much power and sway.

But they'll never catch you, will they, Duo? Hilde can't help the smile at the thought of her best friend. They had grown up together (if you ever could call this rambunctious pair "grown up") in a childhood filled with mischief and laughter and games such as this.

Day in and day out, the two were inseparable since they were little things. Play and fun, and that wonderment and curiosity, bound these two happy souls in a friendship that went way beyond anything. There was nothing Hilde wouldn't do for Duo and she knew inside that Duo would cross Heaven and Hell for her.

Theirs was a beautiful relationship that only two soulmates could share and---

"There you are, you cheating goblin! The village rules say you can't step foot out of the glen! And you stepped your whole body out!" She screams in angry justification.

"Not yet!" The elven boy freezes for half a second when Hilde calls out that he was spotted. But the hunt was not officially over until you were actually caught.

"There! I'm all out now! Ya happy!" Elfy Duo was even more wild than his female counterpart. There was something afire in those big blue-violet eyes that seemed to set the whole boy off into mischievous pranks. The next prank was sure to be bigger and better than the last. Never before was there a rebellious elf such as this one, who dared to challenge the world with every laughed breath. And that was the part about him that excited Hilde.

"Not until I get you down to the ground and tickled!" Hilde squeals in delight at the challenge. She too was absconding from the strict elven code and stepped (more like ran) out of the glen's perimeters after her sprinting, pointy eared compatriot.

"Fast as fast can be, you'll never catch me! AAAAAAHHHHHH!" His long braid is given a long tug downward and Duo's yell could be heard back in the glen they had broken all the rules and strayed out from, well into the eves of Eixip's up to now quiet enchantment.

His torrents of uncontrollable, ticked out laughter ring over the river, catching the interest of its tiniest, adventure seeker inside...


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"What day do you think it is today, Sister Iria? I get so confused, don't you? Isn't it a lovely sky? Just look at the sun's glow!" The orangey fairy wings of little Sylvia, the "baby" of the Sisterhood for ages now, flitter into the garden grown inner sanctum of the Eixip fairy palace. She was glowing herself with the forever quizzical look in her big aquamarine eyes. She was filled with innocence and utter wonder.

The pastel green fairy who tended and cared for this garden, Iria, the fairy of all flora and plantlife within Eixip's grounds, looks up from her fingertips. She has been caressing her newest bed of vivid green leafed cabbuce. She smiles. Iria always had a fond spot for her younger sister and the curious questions on every little thing.

Perhaps that is because your heart is so big it truly does care about every little thing, Sylvia. Especially those tiny creatures you hold so dear.

Iria brushes her hand at her work-mussed hair, pushing it back as she gazes down at the small, furry squirmunk that Sylvia had brought in from the outside world. She released it to pitter-patter up to Iria's barefooted feet.

"And what are you doing in here, furry one?" Iria remarks. The smile was still unchanged on her face as she kneels down to it, scratching the furry squirmunk under it's billowy chin.

It chortles back in delight at her most tender fairy touch. Sylvia's giggles join in the merriment. She had a special connection to all animals, as she was the fairy of the fauna.

"That's a very good question, Sister. Sylvia, you know quite well that we are FORBIDDEN to go into the outside world. What would Mistress Sallie say if she knew you even stepped one foot out of Eixip?" The pastel blue fairy of good fortune casts a sky blue shadow over Sylvia. The poor girl shrinks behind Iria's protective stance. Her little squirmunk friend quickly follows suit.

"I'm sure Sylvia didn't leave Eixip, Middie. The creature just probably wandered in." Iria was quite used to covering for her youngest sister and though Middie too was less in rank than the elder Iria, the green fairy knew that Middie had an overpowering way of frightening little Sylvia into submission.

It wasn't that sister Middie was exactly mean-spirited or anything like that--it was just that she was so exacting and demanding that those things often covered her pure fairy heart's goodness.

Iria was sure Middie's hardness towards Sylvia was only out of love for her and fear of the outside world.

All of us fairies hold and have held, since the beginning, a profound and deep fear of the danger of what lies beyond Eixip's perfect and safe pearly shores, don't we? All of us, that is, except for...

Iria lets her nostalgic mind wander back to a time when this garden of hers was filled with the sweet sounds and songs of a fairy in pink--of the bosom friend she had shared everything with. The museful fairy of dreams who taught her not to fear her dreams and take hold of them...

Oh, Leia. I think maybe you should have feared your dreams. Iria shakes her head sadly.

She comes back into focus as the two sparring sisters before her continue their argument over allowing one tiny, little (he couldn't be more than 4 inches big in total) squirmunk into Eixip's sacred palace. Middie was stubbornly insisting that the "filthy" creature had to go back to the outside world he came from. But it escaped her hands at every grasp. Sylvia shielded her furry friend as much as she could until--

SLINK!

Down Middie's low-cut sky blue dress he unwittingly goes slipping down, down, down...

"GET IT OFF ME!" Middie's shrieks could be heard outside the garden realm of the palace. Sylvia's girlish laughter at her difficult sister's strictness and Iria too was unable to suppress the laughter at Middie's wriggling torment.

Sallie listens to their chattering until a sweet yellow vision skips out of the pillared front entrance over the water takes her attention away. The sweet humming song escaping the throat of yet one more of her small fairy family calms her entire soul with the enchantment and the purple beauty of the most purest of pure that was the fairy Cathrine...

She was the most special fairy amongst them. Haughty Middie would often not admit this fact and acted as her rival in all things.

They all knew however, from the start, that Cathrine was the fairy which every whimsical fantasy of beauty, kindness and love were blessed especially upon, destined long ago, waiting...


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Hmm, hmmmm, hmmm..."

The hummed refrains of her favorite song seem to roll from the pretty celestial voice of this one particular fairy princess. All of the fairies in Eixip could sing of course. It goes without saying. For one of the first fairy lessons on etiquette and training was in song.

This well-honed tradition had been passed down for genera---well, what am I saying? Considering their longevity, their unaging beauty due to the magic fairy dust they possessed--there aren't past generations of fairies to be had. Only one generation before who were all gone now.

And now, it was just the same five sisters who had never yet passed over and never would. For those who lived in the enchanted world of Eixip were immortals.

The magic fairy dust on their wings kept them safe and pure and protected from the ravages of time. As for the unclean world without, that was kept well away by their fellow immortal, the Water Nymph, Sallie who long ago had sworn allegiance to remain here, hidden beneath the river's currents, vowing to protect the delicate, last precious fairies who lived within.

Yes, the waning small number sisterhood of fairies were all immortal--but they could be killed by outside evils. Their lives were as delicate as the fragile iridescent see-through wings that were attached to their smooth-skinned backs.

In ancient days, the ancient sisterhood of fairies had been hunted down by the mortal, wicked ones. Their precious wings had been plucked to become part of some powerful sorcerer's conjured brew. Magic such as their wings held was a vital and much sought after commodity in the outside world filled with magic and men with the ambition to rule.

Everybody who was anybody was well aware that this world could not be conquered without the pure energy of fairy dusted wings and Sallie, the Water enchantress was not about to let any foolish mortal men touch the last few fairies that were left in this world again. They lived under her sworn protection in this sacred enchanted forest.

The river of magic that surrounded the small isle of Eixip was all that stood between these fairies and their total annihilation by greedy men.

And yes, it is because they are men that they are so dangerous. They're untrustworthy.

Sallie had somehow come to her own conclusion on this subject. All things important and precious to this underwater translucent nymph were taken away from her by the despised male species of human. All things taken...and yet, something given in return...

Sallie's water-filled eyes (were those tears?) follow the river currents back to the golden riverbank shores of Eixip, where one tiny fairy's wings flutter over the waters.  
Her teeny little toes dipped into the water's crest.

"Oooh, the water's so cool, Aunt Cathy. Come play in it! Come play!" A teeny, tiny voice matches the teeny, tiny sunshiny face who spoke in anticipation.

"I'll be right with you, dear. Just let me finish mending this falcon's torn wing." Cathrine, the fairy of beauty, was indeed the kindest and most beautiful of gentle souls. To all living creatures who were injured or in pain, anyone who needed her dainty fingers and graceful attendance were never turned away.

Her magic was used only for the good of others. The beloved and adored fairy healer whose beauty inside the purest of souls was only equalled by the beauty portrayed on her outside as well.

With her glowing auburn curls that bounced in the sunlight as if to dance about her perfect shoulders and slender neck that led up to her face--ahh, the face of a fairy goddess. She was unparalleled with only goodness and light radiating from her.

Her gorgeous purple eyes added to her beauty, and made her breathtaking to the human eye. That is, if any human eye would ever catch a glimpse of her.

Sallie had seen especially to Cathrine's safety for she knew full well that the beauty and radiance, and moreover the powerful magic held within her body, would stir up such desire and want for any man who ever saw her brilliance.

And then her light would be captured and extinguished.

"There you go, little one." With a whispered kiss of healing on the feathery cheek, the falcon, it's wing mended, flaps its healed wing away into the distant sky overhead.

"Now, what enchants you today, Princess Mariemaia? May I play...too...?" Cathrine smiles as she too flutters her own iridescent lavender fairy wings to where her young charge was just moments ago splashing her feet about.  
She had taken this child under her wing (pardon the pun) when Leia, Cathrine's cherished friend and sister, had passed on. For no magic power of healing Cathrine herself held, could bring back the purity lost that kept them alive in immortality.

The exchange of one life for another, the balance Leia herself understood and she was fully prepared to touch the impossible fantasy because she was the fairy of dreams.

Beautiful dreams were broken that day. Seven mortal years ago by a human man. But Leia must've seen something even more dazzling than her own dreams in that man. Cathrine knew her sister so well in the knowledge that Leia's powerful mind at times was so serious. She was frightening then to a simple hearted fairy girl as Cathrine was. And the depths of her dreams could not be tricked nor enchanted by any mere man.

And that is all he was. The proof was in the blood of the child that Leia had given birth to. For though Mariemaia was a fairy princess in every sense of the word--from her fairy magic dusted wings down to her dainty pixie toes--she was also a part human girl. The beating heart inside her little chest told them that it too, would one day cease its cycle of beating--and in so saying, Mariemaia was not immortal.

Her time on this world would come and pass, just as that of every human being living in the vast land outside Eixip's perimeter. She would not know time immemorial. She would one day, die, just as she lived--in the beating flash of a second.

That's the way it seemed to immortals anyway. A human lifespan was so short and fleeting that it made compassionate Cathrine want to weep. And over these past seven years she and other fairies had raised Mariemaia as their own, as Leia would have wanted them to.

They taught her of fairie lore and of her role as the future dream fairy.

But what future is there? For dreams that end far too soon?

Cathrine wanted to know this just as all of these years she wanted to know what level-headed Leia had found so alluring in a single human man that she would willingly give up her immortality, just to be with him for a split second in infinity...

But at the same time, flighty Cathrine feared both the questions and moreso, their answers. For either way, she felt something eternally precious would be lost to her loving heart.

"Mariemaia?" Brushing back the tear from her glistening eye, Cathrine swallows down hard.

I won't think of these things until the day comes. That's all.

She sends her curiosity back to its small, dark corner in her mind. She returns to reality and her view searches for the small bundle of joy she loved and adored far too much to think ever to lose. And in so realizing that...

She lost her.

"Mariemaia!" A moment of panic and Cathrine flutters her wings at full blinding speed over the river's rippling waves. Surely in that moment of inattention the child could not have slipped and fell under the water's currents to her watery death?  
No, she couldn't possibly have.

"Mistress Sallie! I need your help!" Rarely did Cathrine call out to the ominous nymph guarding these waters. But over the past seven years, Cathrine had found no better advisor than the wise Water Nymph.

Not a single fairy in the palace back there had any idea how to raise a child possessing the curiosity and adventurous spirit of a human being--and the speed and magic of a fairy princess combined.

"Princess Cathrine?" A solemn voice echoes from the deep.

"Mariemaia was just here. I looked away and then up again and she disappeared!" Cathrine, even in her angst ridden excitement was a sight of pure beauty. Her curls fluttered on the wind her wings were circling around.

"Fear not, Princess. She is safe above the water still." Sallie says with the kind understanding of a wizened old granny.

"The little child is hovering near the far shore. There, do you see her now?" Sallie could keep the fairies safe, just as long as they remained on this side of the river she protected.

"Yes! Oh thank you, Mistress Sallie!" Cathrine's flying wings zip off in the direction towards the far end of the riverbank. It was quite near the forest's edge where the tiny figure of a yellow fairy was buzzing about.

She was picking flowers from the bank's edge there.

"Careful she doesn't wander into that forest! There are creatures you wouldn't want her to play with there." Sallie warns. She and the elven race at play never got along well at all.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"Mariemaia...!" Cathrine's golden throat was about to calm down. She was now just a few wing flaps away from retrieving her flutterbudget of a charge, safe and un----

"Here I am, Aunt Cathy! Help me gather some of these flowers for the palace. Aren't they pretty? I wonder why they only grow here and not on the other side of the riverbank, too. Don't you?" Mariemaia's delightful little voice chirps as she continues to pluck the bright yellow and pink daffo-mums from their home right at the river's edge.

"I've never wondered it before, but now that you've said it, I wonder why, too. Maybe it's because they're yellow and pink and only lavender and blue flowers grow on the other side." Cathrine flutters over to where Mariemaia was greedily picking whole bunches of the rare flora and bunching them carefully in her hands. She was not REALLY listening to her ditzy aunt's silly explanations and theories. Mariemaia instead found simple pleasures of flowers and dreams going hand in hand--that, and the driving need to take even one more tiny step into the world without.

It wasn't that the well-cared-for and loved fairy child didn't appreciate what she knew here in this land of fairies. She loved them all, especially her Aunt Cathrine. However, there was a world out there--a big world, and she could feel the want, the need, the desire, to explore it--to search for the untouchable, glorious treasures that must lie out there, somewhere. For the adventurous human spirit within her tiny body made her unknowingly reach for the impossible dreams she had of the great out there somewhere.

And that was something else that added to Cathrine's fears. Mariemaia was not very much at all the calm, composed fairy Leia was. She had only in one forbidden moment had compromised her level-headed life of the straight and narrow she had always led. No, Mariemaia was different. Though she had the body, magic and wings of a fairy, she had the heart and soul of an explorer, an adventurer, of a human, inside.

And that was what made her continually reach out into the unknown instead of wanting to stay in the safe-guarded world that all other fairies clung to within.

And so, with all these factors raging within her childlike body and mind, Mariemaia lets her wild heart do the walking. Her adventurous soul directs her tiny feet to just reach up and take one, teeny-weeny step out into the river bank's other side---the off limits side that led to the outside world...

"--or maybe it's because these flowers like to change the colors of their dresses, just like we fairies do...?" Cathrine then ceases her incessant chattering about the flowers. She just notices, in that second, that the little fairy girl beside her---was no longer beside her.

In fact, she was now not only one, but several steps out onto the banks of the foreign forest's green grassline.

"What're you doing? Can I play too?" Mariemaia's squeaky little fairy voice takes the tickling pair off guard. Hilde and Duo look at each other, wide-eyed, then to the new intruder.

They answer each other's question with a shrug and elfish smile.

"Sure! Why not? The more the merrier." Duo's happy-go-lucky attitude smiles at his new playmate.

"Yeah! Us two girls against one boy! We'll beat him up good! You'd better run, Duo! This girl's got wings! So there's no use climbing trees! We'll count to ten so you'd better run!" Hilde's playful nature grabs hold of Mariemaia's little hand. She nor Duo didn't care what species their new playmate was, just as long as she was fast---and fun.

Duo, the playful elf dashes off when Hilde covers both her own and Mariemaia's eyes.

"Come on!" Hilde's peeking eyes catch glimpse of the elf boy's running flight away. His long, long brown braid trailed behind as he disappears into the green treed forest that Mariemaia had never entered before. But she was enthusiastically curious and wanted to do so her entire life.

What manner of creatures are these two? They have pointy ears! It doesn't matter--I like them!

She thinks as the girl with short hair and pointy ears grabs her hands on the hunt after their target, hiding in the trees.

"It's too quiet here! Duo must've gone this way!" Hilde's big pointed ears (far too large to be proportionate with her skinny little frame) prick up. The size of those ears was something elves treasured. It gave them a longer range listening capacity for targets even too far for human ears to pick up.

This sensitive hearing ability gave these woodland creatures a defense and prewarning before being attacked by a greedy boar or wandering centaur--or even worse---monsters after their luck magic that each elf was born with.

Besides, having such good ears made playing "Hide, Seek and Tickle" so much fun! Except...

Hilde stops stark still. She thrusts a halting hand over Mariemaia's bobbing orange head. The small child's little wings had been flapping with all their might to keep up on this merry elven chase.

"Listen. I hear him up in this tree." The only unfortunate thing in an elf chasing game, Hilde allows herself one moment of humor to ponder, as she scoops up Mariemaia and holds her up in the air, was that his elfy ears could hear her a mile away too! And neither of them rarely ever caught the other fair and square.

Why play fair anyway? It's dull.

ZIP!

Along with a few disturbed birdies, Duo the elf knew his gig was up and agilely leaps across the treetops he was greenly blending into.

Not to worry, Du-ey! I have a secret weapon today!

"You can't get away from us so easily!" She screams at the top of her lungs. "Okay, fairy, flap your wings as fast as you can and tag that no-good, worthless elf when he least expects an aerial attack---! Whoa--!"

The second after Hilde releases Mariemaia into the air above with a thrown, launched start up, a wave of nausea hits her like a ton of bricks.

This never-ill elf girl felt so dizzy she could barely stand. Falling to her knees on the leafy ground, Hilde could swear (and does) she could hear in her well-honed ears, the tinkling sound of fairy dust...

Looking up she sees the cause of her unexpected attack and pitiable defeat.

A fairy stood before and if not for this depressing situation, Hilde would have laughed out loud at the thought of being taken down by a bare-footed, orchid mini-dressed fairy. She had brown curlies and long, long legs and the voice---

"Mariemaia! Come back here at once!" Yeah, the voice was a fairy's.

Cathrine the Fairy doesn't bother with the female elf who had already fallen under her magic dust's spell. Her wings fly swiftly up in chase of her wayward ward and whatever danger she could be zipping straight into.

Being older and more experienced (in flying, that is) Cathrine quickly catches up to the child---but it was a second too late...

"Gotcha! Did'ja think silly fairies could beat me! Hah!" Danger was spelled with a capital "Duo." This elf boy gambled everything, as he always did, for a game. He didn't seem to care about his own neck as he takes the two fairies by surprise and leaps clear into the empty blue air. Though he had no wings of his own to save even a lucky elf from imminent death of being turned into a splat on the forest ground, he had theirs---

Or at least he thought he had. Amidst the cacophony of squealing fairies added to by the screams of his own death-defying descent, Hilde's highly tuned ears pick up another sound entering the forest. Another sound so nearby that if not for this out-of-control game of fairies and elves she was certain both she and Duo could sense in a split second of a split second and---

"INTRUDER!" Hilde's loudest voice warning screech was just in Duo's sensitive hearing range despite all the screaming in the air around him. He was just about to land smack in between the two fairies and be able to grab hold of them and hitch a free ride. But Hilde's warning came a moment too late.

WHIZZZZZZZZ

The trio of arrows that fly through the air simultaneously with such utter precision and aim could be the handiwork of none other than an expert marksman.

Each finely sharpened arrow hit it's target right on the mark and Duo goes flying backwards against the wind--struck in several places.

The golden tipped arrows had come so swiftly and unforgivingly, they had sent his body flailing hard against the tall, leafy green tree's wide trunk. They deeply embedded into the tree, holding the elf boy's apparently lifeless limp body there with the arrows he was just pummeled with.

"DUO!" Hilde had never screamed so loud before in her entire life. (And she's put over quite a few tries before.) Her whole world was crumbling about her. Her ears now drooped in sadness at the sight of losing her best friend--her soul mate.

And she, as all elves in grievance had done before, falls to the ground, pounding at it as she covers her own body in the leaves scattering across the forest floor, with tears falling uncontrollably.

Feeling the pity for these now seemingly harmless elves, Cathrine allows herself and Mariemaia to fly to the boy hung in the tree. She needed to see if she could herself help him. Yet even for her healing powers, it could be too late. However...

"WAHHHHHHH! Am I dead! Am I dead! Hilde! Am I dead!" The mouth is the first to come back to consciousness. Cathrine didn't have to use her powers today for she had forgotten something else about these strange little creatures called elves---

They had incredible luck.

"You're not dead, silly." Mariemaia giggles as she and Cathrine with the help of a little fairy magic, pull out the arrows golden tipped from the tree. Cathrine takes note of how the deadly arrows were, all three placed so strategically that they pinched only the elf boy's excess clothing to hold him up, pinned to the tree.

So skillyfully trained that Cathrine was certain now that the swift arrows were not intended to harm nor kill the boy---but to save his life from the fall...

But who was their saviour? Cathrine's fairy eyes scan the deep green of the forest in search of the heroic owner of the rescuing golden arrows so she could thank him for saving this poor elf boy's life. Cathrine's compassion was the utmost characteristic of her good and pure personality.

The deep green of the forest was dulled by the deep green of his eyes. Cathrine's own violet ones open wide in shock at the gaze landing upon her by the "saviour" of one braided elf-boy. His gaze freezes her in her place, half-way there in her winged tracks.

He had the eyes of a fantasy, the perfect visage, the face of a Prince of Angels. For that was what he was--what he appeared to be--a dashingly handsome prince--whose dream-filled eyes of calm, peaceful depths were beckoning to her as his graceful, agile hands swiftly resheath the bow and arrows into the quiver on his back.

The golden tipped arrows make a chiming metal-to-metal sound as they slide down into his golden quiver. A trusty sword of dipped steel clang with them as they go.

It is that sound of steel and metal, of weapons of war and destruction that brings the dutiful instinctive side of Cathrine's nature out. That along with the frightened skittishness every fairy possessed.

In the flash of a second her wings cease their descent to greet the handsome newcomer.

Quick hands grasp the fairy child beside her, and both take flight, making a beeline for the safety of home, just over the river's edge. They disappear just as quickly as they came--in a flutter of lavender fairy dust.

For a long minute, silence overtakes the darkening forest that, to this human archer, had only moments ago been aglow with a wondrous light and radiance. A shining light that seemed to him to follow that lovely fairy who had just departed.

His eyes watch her go sadly.

"Ummm...Hilde...ummm, could you and your new friend there get me down from here?" The silent stillness is broken by the plaintive voicebox of elf Duo. He as yet, was left hanging up there on that tree by a trio of golden arrows.

That just happened to be put there by that guy below. Lucky he didn't hit anything vital. But...who holds grudges anyway? Nope! Not me!

Duo's lips pucker at the thought as he looks down at his rescuer in the forest.

"Sure, Duo, I'll be right there. Geez, some fun game this turned out to be!" Grumbling Hilde gets up and starts to brush herself off. The grief of before now turned into frustration at her lucky friend.

At the same time she continues to keep a suspicious eye trained upon the obviously non-elven (no pointy ears) man standing just a few feet from where she was on the ground.

Seeing her still slow movements, the unknown archer takes a step forward. Hilde shrinks back instinctively to which the Archer raises a peaceful, palmed hand.

"Please allow me, Elven Princess." A gracious bow adds to the already respectful lowering of his deep green eyes. Their gorgeous view was mostly masked behind a shock of auburn hair, giving this man a mysterious romantic air that Hilde suddenly finds quite enthralling.

His beautiful eyes were those that a feminine heart found easy to trust---even naturally suspicious one's like Hilde the elf.

The archer shoots a rope arrow mere inches from where the hapless Duo hung on the tree. Duo gulps loudly.

With the agility and balance unbelievable of someone hailing from the race of mere mortals, the archer's graceful limbs climb the rope with amazing speed. He hoists Duo over his broad shoulders after easily extricating the caught elf by removing his planted arrows with strong hands. Then, just as swiftly as he went up, he travels down. Hilde watches the whole rescue process with awe on her cute face until the archer's tall, thin frame alights back onto the ground. He secures a dizzy, spinning elf-boy to his own feet on the forest floor in a whirlwind save.

"Whew! Could you teach me that knack you've got with your bow and arrow thingy? That'll really impress the elf girls back home." Duo whistles. Obviously his bird-brained mind already made friends with this "intruder" of their forest.

Hilde rolls her eyes at Duo's attitude. Big dumb oaf!

"Certainly. That is, if..." The archer's green eyes dance in anticipation. He and Duo had already seemed to have had a conflab somewhere during this rescue.

"Oh, right! No prob!" Duo smacks his hands together, ready for mischief again. His wild eyes flash at the smell of fun.

Quick elven legs take off down the forest trail. He pauses in his race to call back to where he left his best friend standing beside their rescuing archer with a question on her face.

"Come on! She lives on the other side of this river, in the fairy land Eixip! Come on, I'll show you the way!" Duo announces as he runs.

"Guess that answers that..." Hilde murmurs under her breath at the way of all males, any and every species as the Archer's eyes light up and he follows the path of the braid fading from the glen into the trees...


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Gotta warn you though. She's a real winner. No fun at all! That Water fairy or spirit or Mistress of the Deep or whoever the heck she is!" Duo's incessant speeches had been going on for a full five minutes now.

Hilde was so accustomed to the droning sound of his voice almost missed her cue to show her show-off buddy up.

"The Water Nymph, Duo! That's what they call her, sheesh! There's not a thing that goes unforgotten with you, is there! I must've pulled that braid of yours too many times, I gues---"

Though contrary to what the female elf claimed was her partner's shortcomings, her voice was the one mostly prattling on during their short journey back to the river together. However, when the last treeline obscuring the blue of the silver river parted, it was no longer still.  
And not only---it no longer blue...

Hilde and Duo had lived all of their young elven lives here in this forest. They had not once ever seen the beautiful river that guarded the enchanted land of Eixip ever anything but peaceful, calm and that certain shade of perfect azure as it always. Just as when they were playing hide and seek, mere moments before.

But no longer was the river still and blue. In fact, it was the opposite--all choppy with torrents and restless waves. But more frightening than that, no longer did the crystal river run clear--it was now an evil devilish shade of crimson red. It was as crimson and as red---as blood...

Their ears prick up and Hilde and Duo look to each other in fear. For no longer could they pick up the soft, low strains of lovely fairies singing and dancing in the palace across the river or on the distant hill. No longer could they hear the tinkling of bells of fairy music they had become so used to hearing.

No, there was nothing. Nothing but stillness and silence in the home of their new fairy friend that had just flown back to nothing but---

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" A high-pitched scream pierces the eerie silence. The archer and elves cringe, for they all knew who that scream belonged to. It was the beautiful voice of the fairy princess who had just fled from them with her young charge towards the safety of a palace that was no longer safe.

The fairy palace itself was on fire.

"Water Nymph! Water Nymph! Where are you! Your fairies need you! Help them!"

From somewhere above the water, Sallie could hear the elves calling for her to protect her little ones. She could clearly hear beneath the watery waves, their despair. She could hear the fear and surprise and shock in her fairies' voices that would no longer sing to her in the cries for help, the screams of pain and torment as one by one, the magic held within each one's fairy wings were plucked away. Stripping the lovely creatures of not only their magic powers, but...

Also their lives.

"LEAVE THEM BE!" Wave after tidal wave of raw Nymph energy fights below on the river floor with the forces of evil sent from the dark lair high atop Nogard Mountain from whence they came.

They were obviously sent to capture one of the highest forms of energy in this world---Fairy Wing dust--and in so doing, kill every single fairy left in the Universe. They were too few already to count and now...

Sallie forces away the tears in her watery eyes.

The attack came from the Air...I could not stop them! I could not protect my little ones from the horrors of this fate! Sallie thinks desperately, her heart breaking as she lashes her anger out at the evil one whose evil incantation had sealed her beneath the water's hardened and impenetrable crystal surface. She could not use her own magic to save her fairies outside of the water---but she could still use her powers under the water, in here, as the wicked Dragon Master and despised man was about to find out.

The deep wrath of evil and of men was about to be unleashed when Sallie thinks of what happened just moments ago that could change the course of power on this green world...

It had all happened so suddenly. There was no warning, no indication on the wind--not the least bit of a hint to convey to the peaceful fairies of Eixip what was to come.

One minute, Iria, Sylvia and Middie were all there in the palace garden nearby, at peace. They were singing, playing, tittering to each other of things only fairy girls tittered about as they had dance about, dipping their feet in the cool water pond. They were joyfully discussing in all seriousness the frivolities of their pure world of joy. Each didn't have a thought in their simple, beautiful minds of what was to come. The sisterhood, in their immortality, had no idea what pain, torture and death were until this very moment it rained down from the clear blue sky in the form of a strange gloomy cloud of sorts.

There were never clouds in Eixip, especially never dark ones. It would never dare rain on their lovely white palace. Sylvia had looked up at the cloud and wondered aloud,

"What is it doing up there?" and "My! Isn't that big and puffy! I wonder what it is!"

None of them really feared it, for they never doubted that Sallie would protect them and keep away anything bad or scary. No, it was actually a funny thing when the cloud opened up, like a parting wave.

Iria had evened likened it to a smile on a gloomy face. They had all laughed nervous little giggles then. But that could be no further from the truth.

For a smile it was not. It was more like a full open mouth of fangs. The deadly, dangerous fangs of a dragon--the most powerful, fearsome creatures of death and destruction this world had ever seen when controlled by the will of an evil force in the form of the large jewel embedded magically upon the dragon's forehead.

And before Middie, or Iria or Sylvia could make it to the fountain pond and summon their protector named Sallie--

It had been too late. For riding alongside the female Dragonmaster, atop the turquoise blue dragon named "Shenlong" was a Nymph with as much power--or more--than the fairies' own Water Nymph, Sallie.

For this was the prophesied return of the daughter of war--the Fire Nymph of olden days found and magically resurrected from her frozen, captive cage of ice to which she had been banished to, long ago.  
In ancient days, when there was once a king from the north who had found some way to vanquish her evil with the power to destroy her entirely---but in the moment of truth, he found he could not.  
For the human part of him had fallen deeply in love with the Fire Enchantress' beauty and inextinguishable, soulful eyes. He believed her to be not entirely lost and in the end, he could not destroy that to which he had given his heart to.

Instead, he sealed her into the cold, bleak patterns of ice in the polar wastelands. She was devoid of all power, sealed, unaging within the crystal ice magic sphere she was entombed in forever.

But that king long ago, could not have forseen the intense magic of the power hungry Sorcerer Dermail. He would not have foretold that this wily sorcerer would release the beautiful and wicked Fire Nymph into a world of peace. She would once again rain her fiery destruction on the world. And now adding to her hatred of all things good and pure was a sense of revenge upon the descendants of the despised king who had locked her away all of these eons of years ago...

After this was all over, her mystic debt to Dermail paid, the Fire Nymph herself would seek out and destroy everything of that cursed kingdom.

The land, the people, the palace--but starting with first and foremost, the current ruler of the land. He would held that horrid man's title and power and crown she would eradicate. Anything to do with that accursed name--burn it to ashes and embers with the fire broiling within her heart for revenge upon he who holds the name of...

Peacecraft...


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Was that all of them? Only these three?" The slithering, hissed voice was as scaly as the jeweled head of the dragon that the female rider who, in accordance to the subservient dragon bowed down beneath her aquamarine ringed finger, was casually petting now. She was quite pleased with her own deeds. Justice had been served with the sentence of the wicked race of fairies who were responsible for the demise of her clan--or so she had been told by Lord Dermail as a child. She and one little boy had come home from their play with the mystic dragons one day they were destined to command, so long ago, it seemed.

They had met Lord Dermail just a day earlier then---and he seemed a kind, old man who wanted nothing more than to speak with their clan's Master, the rising leader and star reader. In fact, it was Lord Dermail's kind offer to bring the two chosen dragon masters to visit the nesting cave containing the young fledging dragons which were to be their own that day.

He said he loved dragons and so wanted to see the hatchlings. Dermail even told the two children a story on the way there. A tale of danger and derring-do, a tale of justice and injustice. It was of evil, frivolous fairies who despised their own weakness so much that they swore to conquer the strong--such as the Dragon Clan--and destroy everything that was just. They would kill everyone so that they, the jealous fairies, could take that strength and power magically to become stronger themselves and not the weaklings everyone knew the petty, little beings of the South were.

Lord Dermail had finished his stories of his own adventures of justness and bravery and strength whilst they petted their two baby dragons, wide-eyed and curious. And he brought the pair of children back home. Neither were aware of the havoc that had been wrought upon the clan while they were gone.

All the noble and strong warriors had been taken down and slain by an unknown enemy who had already come and gone. Their cries of anger and tears were comforted only by "kind" Lord Dermail's sympathy. The boy and girl could clearly see, flapping away in the distance an iridescent haze of fairy wings. And the despised dust of their attackers' were sprinkled on each of the clan's dead. This was undeniable proof of the massacre the evil fairies took out upon the strongest and most just clan on this world...

Fanned by Dermail's winds of hatred, the fire burned inside Meilan's soul and it was still as hot and scalding as was that day, so long ago.

"One day," Lord Dermail had said, "One day you will impart revenge for your clan. One day when you are both older and stronger you and your dragons both will serve justice upon the wicked and unjust fairies."

Well, for Meilan, one of the two dragon masters of the now gone Dragon Clan, the day of justice and sentencing had come. This was the day her true hatred and strength could be released upon the unjust for what they had done in the past.

And now longer would there be an immortal life of injustice and frivolity for the fairies. They had the blood of her ancestors on their hands and cursed names...

PLUCK!

What was one more shriek inside of the screams within her soul? The pile of the three sets of magic wings lay on the once bright and happy floor. The mound of dying fairies were left cruelly beside their life forces. They felt their immortal existence on this world coming to an unjust end...

Sylvia's chubby hand reaches for Iria's no longer strong one. The final question of "Why?" was on her silent lips as Middie looks away from the scenes of death and destruction about them. She was searching for one last glimpse of the light that had been within her soul...

And all rivalry for Cathrine disappears, slipping away as her life and those of the others come to a tragic end.

"My job is finished here. You deal with the rest." Meilan feels the justice in her heart complete. The warrior she was wanted no part of the gathering of fairy dust magic from their detached wings. She saw no use in this wicked weakness, but this was Lord Dermail's request--to not destroy the delicate wings, but bring them safely back to him.

For he wanted to decide on how to dispose of the cursed things in his vast wisdom.

"I have a Water Nymph to pluck out now--that is if Wufei has left some joy of sentencing justice for me! We'll be back for you, Fire Nymph." Meilan's haughty pride in herself and her own abilities was almost sickening.  
Lucrezia the Fire Nymph rolls her eyes at the departing Dragon Master who had done nothing but inflate herself and brag of her "mighty" strengths.

That dragon of yours is the one with the powers. You would be nothing without it, foolish little girl. As Dermail puts it, you children have never grown up. You've matured with nothing but revenge to hold onto. Revenge? Your revenge is NOTHING compared to mine...What he has done to me...

In her mystical fires, she looks to where the target of her own revenge was. To where he kept himself hidden away amidst the warmth of his castle home. He sat in front of the fires she had craved for eons and was deprived of---until now...

A platinum head of long straight hair, with haunting chilled eyes of blue ice, freezes it visage upon her blazing hot heart.

So, she diverts her gaze from this vision and collects instead, the fairy wings. She was biding her time for the moment of her freedom from this bondage--and that would be the moment of the Peacecraft King of the North's death.

The red fire ablaze upon the fairy palace's peaks could be seen for miles around. And even for further distances--that is, if you were in the sky.

From above the clouds, the Princess Dorothy had dipped her high-flying pegasus down into the fluffy white things, just to see what would happen. It was the fun and sheer joy that only the freedom of the skies gave to her rebellious soul. But it wasn't as fulfilling as usual.

What is wrong with me today? It's not as if I could possibly be afraid of my upcoming wedding! I've certainly done this enough times.

Sarcastically, to herself, Dorothy reminisces all the wedding ceremonies she had attended as a bride---but never was there a groom to make it down the aisle.

"It's strange, Pegasus." She whispers in the ear of the noble steed she was lofted upon. "But today, I feel as if something is coming. Something exciting--something...AAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Dorothy lets out a rather unladylike screech when her thoughtful dreamy eyes open---to find a pair of equally thoughtful and dreamy eyes staring back.

"How--how--how...?" The usually very easy to speak Princess finds herself stuttering in the shock of not being alone up here in the vast, lonely clouds she so often visited. After all, only those who owned Pegasus (and Dragons) could fly so high up in the atmosphere. And only a select few could master either of the mythic beasts of the air, so...

"W--who--who are--who?" Dorothy remembers her cousin's words and takes a deep breath before she opens her flustered eyes again.

"Who are you?" She finally finishes, and for the first time takes in a wide-eyed view of the huge falcon who had, unseen and unnoticed, flown up and was now hovering beside her and her skittish pegasus. Both Princess and winged horse were too absorbed in the glorious still, silent clouds to pay any attention to the entrance of the golden-brown feathered beast and his rider mere feet beside them.

The blue of the sky was shamed by the sky blue in his eyes. The sun above them dulled by the radiant sunshine of his hair.

Shaking herself from these flights of fancy.

I must be spending too much time with my fanciful cousin...

Down-to-earth Dorothy jerks her head back from the sweet face so close to hers. It startled both him and her pegasus who whinnies in surprise.

"Whoa! Pegasus! Calm down!" But it was the beating hooves inside Dorothy's own heart that needing the calming. She blushed bright red, for some unknown reason, as the golden boy's eyes landed upon her again. The laughter in them was something she had not seen for some time...and for some reason, right now, could not place from where she had known them before...

"Forgive me. Did I frighten you?" The kind concern entered his blue eyes and was a sort of beacon of light. Dorothy's conscious told her that it was merely Pegasus' rearing that caught her breath in her throat--that it was the fright that caused the pounding in her chest and in her heart.

But the "better"side of Princess Dorothy yet prevails. She took hold of her golden reins firmly before she decides to speak to this intruder on her solitary flight.

"No, of course. I do not frighten so easily." She states with a snotty nose up in the air look on her every upturned feature. The slitted sides of her eyes gave the honey-colored falcon a slightly approving look as it kept time with her own pegasus' steady flight path.

"I am glad." The boy's smile was like a rainbow as it spreads across the space. It disconcerted Dorothy so much, that she slips and loses hold of the reins held heretofore, tightly in her hands.

The hands of which are now grasped gently, yet firmly, by the boy, to steady her dizzy spell.

"Never before have I seen such beauty..." The boy's mouth was as sweet as a bird's in song. Dorothy found herself enraptured with every syllable he uttered. His hands were still clasped to hers while his eyes searched hers deeply.

"Everything I've seen here is so beautiful. The clouds, the sky are beautiful. The seas below are beautiful. The lands and the forests are beautiful here. This pegasus and her rider are especially..." He lets the last compliment slip away into the "beautiful" clouds. His gaze looks down to where both sets of their hands lay interlaced as their two flying beasts soar beside each other in perfect unison.

"Who are you?" Princess Dorothy breathes, finding herself, strangely, at a loss for words; other than the burning question to know who exactly this young man was.

"Oh. How silly and thoughtless of me. Forgive me, Princess." His chuckle was lilting and neither seemed to notice their fingers around each other still. They were both so entranced in one another's eyes.

"My name is Qu--" The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy begins to say his name when suddenly his falcon and her pegasus both rear up in fear, breaking the tender handclasp between the two humans.

"Good heavens! Eixip!" Dorothy screams out in horror at the sight in the distance. She commands her pegasus to fly towards the rising smoke.

"What!" Quatre calls out after her speedy departure from him above the clouds.

"The palace of the fairies!" Dorothy's high voice yells back in fear as her pegasus dives through the clouds, straight towards the billowy smoke. She no longer noticed the golden falcon nor its rider, who without a second thought, plunges down right behind her. Both creatures of the air dive down into the unknown danger within the fairy palace in the land of Eixip, fire consuming all...


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

There were no harp strings carrying melodies, no songs being sung. There were no pittering feet nor beating wings inside the palace that was once filled with these sounds.

Silence was a strange sound to a fairy who lived her entire immortal life within these confines; never once straying out of the safety past the river's edge. Never once even once even having the hidden urge or curiosity to cross over into that land beyond. Not once...

Until today.

Today of all days, for Mariemaia to choose to disobey the age-old rules of fairies and wander off to play with some frolicsome elves. Today of all days for Cathrine to chase after her and in so doing, meeting a "god" in the forest with green eyes...

No! He was just a human man...I could feel my wings trembling with every flap I went closer to him. I mustn't have anything to do with him! "Humans are trouble! They'll burst your happy bubble!"

Cathrine hears the rhymes of her sisterhood's rules. The sweet, dear fairies had laid down the law of trespassers and crossing the river, sung in song and rhymes, over and over, for so long, that she could hear them berating her even now at this moment as she flutters her guilty wings back into the palace.

She half expected to see Middie and Iria shaking their heads at her foolishness...

"Humans are strangers, they'll only bring you dangers!"

Strange...Cathrine couldn't stop these thoughts circling through her brain. The pounding beat of her immortal heart was within her all the way home. She squeeze Mariemaia's hand tightly the whole way back. Back into the safety of the palace of fairies in Eixip--away from all mischievous elves and...dangerous, handsome men.

But in the moment her wings flutter through the strangely opened palace doors, Cathrine realizes that the danger signals going up in her head, like big red flags, were not due to the elves or even to the mysterious human she had just fled from.

They were caused instead by the danger within Eixip. There, on what once was the welcoming round table of the throne room where all the fairies gathered to talk and hold council, a strange woman sat alone.

A woman Cathrine had never laid eyes on before. A woman who, after taking one look at her burning eyes, could hold the magic of nothing good nor pure--only death--and the fire written in her eyes as she looks up at the two unfortunate fairies returning home.

"Mariemaia..." Cathrine was not as ditzy as she may first seem. The protection of her adored little friend turns this hapless girl fairy into a responsible "fairy godmother." Leaning low, her lips almost unmoving, Cathrine whispers into the child's frightened ear, as the fire temptress was walking (more like slinking in her fire red gown) towards them at the front entrance.

"Fly to him!" Cathrine screams out, releasing Mariemaia's clenched hand and giving her a sending push flying back out the cracked open doors, even as the evil Fire Nymph was already mystically shutting the vast doors to seal the last of her victims inside.

The trembling fear in her tiny fairy body was almost too overwhelming for this orange-haired seven year old sprite. But there was something more driving her lightning fast retreat and escape--her love for the pretty aunt who had always been there to care and play with her. Cathrine had taken her in as her own when her own fairy mother had died...

Him! Him!

Mariemaia's little mind reels, but her spirit was certain of whom her aunty was speaking of.

Cathrine only could have meant that kind archer who aided them just moments ago. The handsome man she was going to thank before remembering the laws of fairies and humans mixing together.

But that doesn't count for me!

Mariemaia was never verbally told of her mystical conceivement--of the forbidden encounter her mother had with the human man who was her father. It was a hushed topic, never spoken of, in fairy land.

But Mariemaia knew, somehow inside, she knew she was not entirely fairy--that the other half of her always longed to explore, seek out adventures--and be able to face dangerous times with a bravery no fairy could deal with. But surely, a human could!

Mariemaia's wings take her across the river faster than ever before. Her focus on her hero standing on the other side was so complete that never did she look upon the roiling, reddish-black depths of the once still waters below...

"I SAID, LEAVE MY FAIRIES BE!"

The deep sea tidal wave threat in her voice echoed loudly to every corner of the riverbed depths she was the ruler of.

But right now, Sallie didn't feel the ruler of anything grand and peaceful and calm. In fact, sealed in by a powerful magic far greater than her own, her waters were invaded and her enemies attacks were fierce and unforgiving. Sallie was feeling destructive and angry.

Both emotions with which she sends in a sudden, fearsome blast of torrential waters. The sheer power of which her attacker had obviously taken too lightly.

BAMMMMMM!  
Sallie lets the hot waters permeate her mystic body. The now translucent Water Nymph readies her defenses for a counter-attack move by her opponent. He treated this whole affair as if it were nothing more than a chess match.

Back and forth, attack and counter-attack--but Sallie knew the stakes were higher than a mere sparring match of wills. Her fairies were crying up there. The fairies whose fairy-dusted wings could prove a valuable treasure in the wrong hands of a sorcerer--or his little trained minions.

The counter-attack does not come in the form of his Shenlong dragon's repeated scaly tail sending a strong wave in her general direction. Though neither dragon nor Master seemed to care what lay in the path of destruction. The peaceful fish and mammals of the water were paying dearly for that whim with their fragile lives.

But no, this time he deems the Water Nymph he was attacking worthy enough to be spoken to---or more like, laughed at.

"Ha ha ha ha. Do you truly think you could defeat my dragon, water wench?" His voice was as scaly as the monstrous aqua green dragon's neck he sat upon. He caressed the dragon with the touch of a friend more than a master, Sallie noted absently.

But before she had the chance to answer his blatantly male discriminatory and deflammatory remark, no to mention that ear-splitting cackle, with some well-chosen words of her own, a thunderous crash breaks through the river's "glass" ceiling above.

Yet another monstrous dragon appears. This one was of a darker, more putrid green shade, and comes smashing through into the waters below.

She didn't seem to care that she had, in so doing, just reopened the escape route for the Water Nymph, now no longer held back from her precious fairies by evil magic.

"Woman! Why did you do that! She will escape, you stupid fool!" Not wanting his prey to get away so easily, Wufei, a Dragon Master, orders his Shenlong to breathe fire. (Yes, underwater. Magic beings such as dragons can do that, you know. .)

With one final powerful wave he simultaneously sends the Water Nymph flying backwards into the underwater cavern Wufei had taken notice of.

His dragon's fire broke down the sediment walls, bringing rock and sand crashing around Sallie's ears, knocking her out, if not killing her.

But her water-filled ears could still hear every word uttered under her river's currents. She groggily listened in on the argued conversation between these two male and female Dragon master warriors.

"It was unnecessary for you to keep her down here. We could more easily dispose of the Water Nymph when she reveals herself on land, because out of her element she would be weaker!" Meiran shakes her head at the male partner who never seemed to use his own. He always wanted to use his battle brawn than his brain, and Meiran always believed herself to be superior in both.

"I thought we agreed to vanquish her down here, for fear she might have some magic link with those pathetic fairies." Wufei nearly spits out this, never liking to be bested by one of the female variety. Not even from his own partner---especially not his own partner.

"Oh, there's no worry of that, Wufei. Unlike you, I accomplished my mission. There's not a fairy left on this world." Meiran can't help but boast to her chauvinistic compatriot. "At least, not one with her wings still attached! Ha ha ha!" It was the dragon mistress' evil boasting laugh that awakened Sallie from her nearly unconscious slumber and her words seared a hole in the calm chest of the Water Nymph's peaceful heart, the floodgates coming down...


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY LITTLE ONES!"

Meilan and her dragon both spin around a moment too late, the crumbled underwater grave that Wufei had thought he had sent the water wench to. It suddenly vibrates uncontrollably, destructively. The darkened waters pulsate with an undeniable venomous anger that neither of the dragon masters had ever witnessed before in the crazed, ominous look. Unspoken threats scream out in the Water Nymph's frightening, illuminated eyes -- the all powerful light of justice searing behind them...

ROAR!

The thunderous waves impact was deadly. Meilan's Nataku dragon by chance and good fortune alone escapes the torrent that surely would have ended the existence of both of them.

The magic this peaceful Water Nymph was wielding was far beyond what either dragon master expected to find. But when a woman, even a gentle, peaceful soul as Sallie, was angry...

Never before had Wufei, legendary DragonMaster, seen such an impressive display of powers clashing, of wills colliding, of strength being tested to the farthest limits of life and death as he watches the two female warriors clash again and again.

Their force displayed, their strength revealed as back and forth they spar. Neither gained, but neither's spirits would admit to defeat. After all, though Meilan was Wufei's compatriot and life long partner, he would never think to interfere with any fight she undertook. It was the sworn code of dragon warriors to never come between a pitched battle of equally matched souls of fighters.

And at this moment, that was a fact that Wufei's jet black eyes were certain of. He was always aware of Meilan's fierce heart of war, otherwise he would not associate himself with a lowly, weak woman.

But never, upon first seeing the blue transparent visage of the Water Nymph's weak gentility, could he have imagined that she too contained the heart of a warrior. A soul of pure strength and he considers this as the battle rages on before his eyes...

And that revelation excites him more than any battle he had ever given witness to before in his entire life as a fighting soul.

CRAAAASH!

Blue fire blazes at its target. Nataku Dragon's deadly sharp spiked tail slashes out at the Water Nymph. Sallie falls with the tears of realization that her beloved fairies were no more than the dust that was once on their backs. Their delicate little back which could not bear the cruelties that this world offered...

"Ha ha ha ha! I am more powerful than you, Water Nymph! Ha! Admit defeat and bow down before me. Surrender if it pleases you. Beg for your life. I still won't allow you to live, will I, Nataku?" Meilan pats the head of her evil eyed dragon she was atop conspiratorally. Both beast and rider showed their true colors of malignant evil, devoid of reason or purpose or honor in the wicked laughter that follows her victory speech.

The evil in Meilan's eyes was deep and pervading, and as sickening as her chuckling gloating. She and Nataku skulk in slowly towards where the defenseless Water Nymph lay. The evil of her deeds finishing off the final touch of whatever goodness once was in this daughter of an honorable clan of warriors. A wicked flame now burned in her dark eyes, consuming her soul...

"Every one of your pathetic fairies got down on her knees and begged me to spare her sorry existence! The sniveling, weak things made my job of plucking their wings even more enjoyable as even I imagined! Won't you do the same for me as your little pixies did, O honored Water Nymph? Won't you grovel at my feet before I tell my dragon to eat you! Perhaps I won't let her if you grovel enough. And then again, perhaps I will." Meilan, it seemed, was beyond salvation. The venom in her voice was as terrible as the scheming lies and deceit in her eyes. Sallie, lying there on the waterbed floor, her grief for her lost fairies--the little ones who were under her protection, who needed her--was too much for her to bear. Perhaps that grief and utter sadness caused this powerful Water Nymph to continue to lay still and vulnerable. Even as the deadly dragon's yellowed teeth smiled its death upon her no longer translucent weakened to mere mortality body...

But Sallie, despite losing her immortality, despite losing her heart--her beloved adored fairies--she had not lost her pride. And no amount of taunting, nor wheedling words of sparing her life from the evil dragon woman or the drooling death dragon hovering mere inches above her body, could take that away from her.

Even in death, Sallie would have that. She closes her eyes, fully prepared for the worst as Nataku's dragon teeth snap open and around her weak body...

"MEILAN! CEASE THIS!" His was the last voice Sallie expected to intervene on her behalf. He himself had cackled at her inept weakness just minutes before his evil partner in crime had arrived to finish off the job. What Sallie did not realize until this very moment was that this Dragonmaster--the one Meilan had called 'Wufei'--had something in him far superior than whatever evil, whatever wicked, had corrupted his heart and mind, just the same as it had corrupted Meilan's that fateful day, so long ago.

For inside Wufei, mighty Dragonmaster, was a golden thread that had not yet been blackened by the evils in this world---a binding strand that wove everything the man was together into the strong warrior he had become. And that line ran deep in his soul was the straight and narrow path---

Of justice.

He unleashes his own Shenlong dragon's teeth. The sharp fangs sink deep into the thick scaled neck of its own lifelong partner. Nataku roars in pain as Shenlong lashes it backwards violently in the endless struggle of life and death.

Nataku's fanged teeth and white fire fight back as one turns upon the other. Brother against Sister, evil against evil.

Leaping from Shenlong's warring neck onto Nataku's outstretched one, Wufei grabs hold of Meilan, pushing both of them from the dragons' fierce backs. Green and aqua blood mixed in the waters below as the dragons battle in a way only beasts could do. Savagely, heartlessly, soullessly, and without justice.

"What have you done, Wufei! My Nataku! Your Shenlong! Our cherished dragons! Why have you unleashed them on each other! Why, Wufei! WHY!" Clasped tight in the strength of his muscular arms, Meilan fights him as he sets her down on the river floor. She pounds on his chest so hard that it almost hurt.

But Wufei didn't care. This was the path of justice. This was right. He was always right.

"Because this is justice, woman! You know it! At least, you used to know it. The just do not taunt the weak, nor prey on their vulnerability. The minute you fall into that trap, you are classed as weak, too. No better than her. Perhaps she is even stronger than you." Wufei's chin juts out pointedly at the Water Nymph still laying there, though weakened and useless. Her high ideals of fighting for goodness now lay there with her, in a weak pile of female tears on the riverbed floor. Her spirit was broken, defeated by a silly thing called grief.

"Justice, Wufei! Justice! What does justice matter in the world of strength and power! When Lord Dermail rules over all! Answer me that, you fool!" Meilan's fists clench so tightly her red nails dig red blood into her palms. The fire blazing in her eyes was that of a possessed soul of evil as her fists strike out in anger at him.

Red blood escapes Wufei's own split lip, mixing into the waters. In a daze, Sallie is a spectator on the arguing Dragon Masters. She watched as the male strikes the female in the face with a retaliating blow, so harsh, fierce and fast, the slap could be heard audibly over the water currents.

"Wake up, Meilan! You've been fooled! We've both been deceived by Dermail. If he was strong, he would not need to destroy the weak. But if he is weak, he does not deserve to rule this world or any. Justice would not allow it." Wufei states. The fierceness in his dark eyes were so intense that Sallie could feel their strength inside her body. His intense warrior's blood somehow gave her strength as it ebbed into her waters, through the river, and into her fading body...

"Justice...?" The wheels of what was once good inside Meilan's heart begin to stir. His words, his intense eyes, found some piece of her that was not yet overtaken by evil. Meilan's eyes wander the seas, connecting with those of the Water Nymph she had so eagerly wished destruction upon before.

The viciousness in Meilan's eyes faded with the gentle, calming ones in Sallie's eyes. And in those clear eyes, Meilan sees a reflection--Sallie's unspoken warning---of fear.

"Wufei! The dragons!" Meilan, Dragon Master, saw in Sallie's eyes, the danger behind him. Their warring dragons' battle was coming closer and closer in their wild, barbaric attacks. Scales, sharp as razor tails and fangs flew towards Wufei's unknowing back in a certain death...

And she throws herself in front of him, knocking Wufei out of the way. Meilan, the evil blackness that had encompassed her being, evaporates in this final act of bravery, of loyalty and friendship--and of infinite justice.

"MEILAN!" Wufei's soul screams out at the horror of her sacrifice. Her blood spills out into the water as her own dragon's tail had lashed out, slicing her body. The waters turn red, swirling about them.

"You were right, Wufei." Meilan whispers her last. "This is justice. I deserve this fate. I've wronged innocents unjustly. Please forgive me, honored Water Nymph..." Meilan's sporadic words were no longer laced with the venom she had address Sallie in earlier. Now, with a new respect for this soul whose eyes had warned her of impending danger. She was a far better spirit than Meilan believed herself to be. But in this sacrifice, it had proved them, if nothing else--as equals.

"Right my wrongs...Take up her cause, Wufei. To free my soul...please..." Meilan's whispers fall upon Wufei's chest. He holds his partner close to him. Both the warrior's within them knew this was the end of their unbreakable partnership as fighters, side by side, together.

Meilan decided, right there and then, that Wufei had found a suitable replacement for her--in the Water Nymph who had shown to her the true path of what righteousness is.

"...For justice..." She trails off. Her last words evaporating into nothingness as her battered body falls limp in Wufei's trembling arms.

"Justice..."

The light Sallie had glimpsed earlier in his eyes emblazens with a fire of raw power. He lowers his dead partner to the floor and stands, with a vengeance to destroy the creatures they once held so dearly, running in his every vein. To avenge his sister dragon master.

A shimmering sword tinted green forms in his hands. Wufei propels himself through the waters, charged with the energy of righteousness and justice for Meilan.

SHIK! CHIK!

In two flashes of a magical sword's blade, two huge jewels coated in green and aqua, float down to the river's depths. The roaring in pain, once invincible mystic dragons shriek as their power source implanted upon their foreheads are cut off, making them creatures of mere mortality again. Any being of power could now easily vanquish them in this weakened form.

And Sallie takes up the cause, for this world's safety and for justice for a brave, warrior girl that these dragons had just taken the life of.

And for him...

And above all, for justice. With the help of Water mistress Sallie's powers, the solid forms that the dragons Shenlong and Nataku once were melt into the waters surrounding them...


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"Help! Help! Aunt Cathrine! Aunt Cathrine!" The wings of a tiny fairy princess were fluttering far faster than ever before in her little life. On the angelic face of the orange-haired sprite was written total and utter fear.

Just one look at the plaintive, white face, it was plain to see she was in need of aid--and for that she had come to the right person. This singular man among men who would risk his life in rescue of an innocent soul or two as he has on many an adventurous quest before.

A certain brother of his was continually out for the thrill of adventure and glory and riches. (So often one went hand in hand with the other two.) And the young boy who had one day become this noble archer had always wanted to tag along with his dashing and daring older sibling. In fact, the famed pair had just returned from a lengthy quest in search of the ancient mountain tales of a singularly golden horned steed of white--the one of legend so named the unicorn.

For mythical creatures named "unicorns" had not been seen in this world for nearly a millennia. They, and their mystic power to teleport, had vanished from the forest of mists one day, a thousand years ago when a greedy king of the netherworld decided to capture the entire forest of unicorns for himself and himself alone, to show off to his rivals of his prowess and abilities.

But the unicorns he had so eagerly touted as caught in his heavily guarded and trap filled forest's edge, had a different idea. And that's when all of them, every one, had vanished, into the air it seemed, without a trace of where, or whence they had gone.

Until recently, during yet another epic adventure a month ago, the archer and his brother had discovered an ancient antechamber in which, if one was ingenius enough to be able to translate the long forgotten language Nital, but let that speak for the intellect of which we're speaking of, was written the prophesied breeding grounds of the unicorns.

It was a place where even a human could live immortal. It was foretold that the breathtaking, beautiful flora there sprung eternal and the creek that never ceased to flow ran immortal crystal waters with sparkling diamonds, emeralds and precious stones.

A place where life was so utterly still and peaceful, where unicorns and small, furry creatures roamed freely and unafraid. For this could be named no other than the land 'Idyllic'.

It was a world in its own world, where weary souls found tranquillity, that is, if the maps and charts were correct in their warnings, only the truest and noblest of hearts could gain entrance into the land of the unicorn.

But if the unpure and untrue dared cross it's canopied tree line, the consequences were, let's say...severe...or so the legend goes.

All that myth and legend were dreams and fantasies that this young archer never held much stock in as he lofty minded brother. He himself merely enjoyed the adventure that was sure to be found alongside him. The feel of the fragrant wind in your hair, the taste of cool, fresh water splashed on your face, the rugged life that was usually denied those in his class--but when did his fanciful brother ever play by the rules?

Rules were made to be broken, he often would state in one of those lengthy, non-lecturing tales of poetry and derring-do. It's a wonder the boy named Trowa ever turned into anything more than the dreamer his brother, who had more than a hand in the lad's upbringing, had raised him to be.

A romantic dreamer, a skilled archer and a handsome hero, all in one. And today that heroicism was about to be tested to its further limits beyond any adventure he had yet to be involved in.

The sought after and treasured prize this time was one of beauty and light beyond measure...carried to him on a fairy's breathtaking wings...

"What's wrong? What's happening over there!"

"Maybe it's the bad guys."

"Of course it's the bad guys, stupid!"

"Maybe we should run then."

"Yeah, let's run."

The bickered, back and forth hysterics were courtesy of Trowa's two elven companions. The long eared pair never had bigger eyes than in this minute. They and their young lives had never seen such chaos or destruction. The red fire rising on the other side of the black waters from the roof of the castle of the fairies was indeed something the pair of elves thought was well...frightening.

Fear and mischief were two things that played hand in hand. But before scaredy Duo or Hilde could get their ankle-booted feet arunning, the orange haired pixie who was their playmate in the tree game before, arrives.

Her bright hair was in stark contrast to the deathly pale white sheet of her face's once peachy skin.

"Aunt Cathrine! Aunt Cathrine! Help! Help Aunt Cathrine!"

The plea for help, the name of her beloved guardian was called out in fear, over and over. Mariemaia had done as her aunt had commanded in the child's moment of panic.  
She had flown as fast and as furiously as her little wings ever dared.

But what now? What do I do when I get across the river? What if I can't find him? What if I can't find Aunt Cathy's brave archer!

Her frantic mind had raced almost as fast as her pounding like a drum heart. Just when it feels like it was about to explode, both heart and head, she sees him. She sees her hero standing straight and tall across the riverbank, waiting for her. Waiting to save her Aunt Cathy for her.

Mariemaia was growing more and more sure that if anyone could, he could do it. She stayed trained and focused in on his green eyes, reassuring her as the closer she gets to where he was standing. His broad shoulders were stiffened and ready for the daring rescue of his fairy tale princess...somehow...

"Help her! Help her! Help her!" Sniffle, sniffle. Mariemaia glides her wings straight into his welcoming arms. The compassionate man he is strokes the girl's head as she blubbers on his chest.

Trowa felt some sort of strange connection to this orange-haired fairy, as if somehow they were close, somehow related...as if by blood.

He comforts her in his strong arms, as a father would hold his child in moments of the little one's fear of the dark. And the dark on the horizon was certainly a frightening thing to see. The Archer takes one last look at the danger ahead, with determination building within him to save this little girl's fairy aunt--to bravely rescue a damsel in distress--and a beautiful one at that.

His own heart caught in his throat at the horrid thought of such a lovely, delicate creature in the hands of any evil threatening, whoever it may be. He was sure that he was the one who could deliver her tender light from it--even it meant plunging headfirst into the murky, most likely, poisonous with the breath of a dragon about it, dark waters separating him from his fair princess.

But in that moment, a far superior and much quicker, means of transport comes swooping down from the skies above. As if ushered in by Providence, a white pegasus comes flying down towards them---with a large falcon just on her heels, swooping in. She had followed the pegasus' trail blindly. The sunshine yellow hair on the rider of the gold bird was in sharp contrast to the black darkness he was entering down upon.

Though Trowa didn't recognize the falcon, nor its rider, he did know the rider of the winged horse. After all, he hailed from the same kingdom and had come here in search of the Princess Dorothy. She had taken off to the skies with this pegasus when she was supposed to be assembled in the cathedral hall, preparing for her upcoming wedding tomorrow.

She was the sole reason for the archer's visit to the forest today. Trowa somehow sensed that his cousin was coming here today, as had he. They were called by the screams of dangers and the prayers of a pure, fairy princess...

"Trowa! What has happened to the fairy palace! What can I do!" Princess Dorothy's own vivid sense of adventure longed to take action herself. She lands her pegasus on the riverbank, awaiting the instruction of her fellow countryman, the man she respected most, only second to one other. She readied herself for her commanding cousin's order to cross the river and vanquish some evils, with the little dagger she suddenly produces from somewhere within the fuschia folds of her long, trailing veiled cape.

"Then guard these little ones for me. Keep them safe until I return."

Dorothy's dreams of adventure and grandeur were not meant to be. The handsome archer ignored her offer to face in mortal combat, no doubt, evils awaiting on the other side of the shore.

This was the battle he and he alone was destined to, since he was born. For though this bravest of men knew it not at the moment--this fairy princess was the one the oracles, the fates, the stars had long ago preordained at his noble birth to find the other half of his gentle soul, rescue her delicate beauty in her most fearful moment of sheer danger. And then take her home to be his princess bride...

His soul somehow recognized that this fairy in danger was it's other half. She would be the one who could bring him from the lonely depths of a heart longing for an unknown time and place. Theirs was a predestined love---a love he had kept himself pure and clean, for her and her alone. So he had found her. Now, for the daring rescue.

In the blink of an eye, a flash of understanding, nodded look between Trowa and the falcon boy over Dorothy's head, and the archer is mounted on the familiar pegasus' back. He and the flying steed take to the darkening skies swiftly, before its former rider has a chance to disagree to being left behind.

"Trowa! You come back here! That's my pegasus! TROWA! I command you! As member of the royal house, I command you! Ooh! Why does that headstrong, pig headed, devil may care attitude run so strong in our family!" Dorothy, after a good spell of ranting and raving at her departed pegasus that was just stolen out from beneath her by a disobedient rider, shakes a fist. Her face was so angry she was trembling, her whole body so infuriated that he dare to leave her behind.

"How dare you leave me behind!" She caterwauls out in frustration, rather unladylike, too. "With these...children...You know I'm not good with children. They don't like me." Princess Dorothy had the class and breeding befitting a member of royalty. However, she didn't have a smidge of the kind gentility required to entertain young ones.

Besides, I dislike them, too.

Dorothy's face falls as she turns to the trio looking wide-eyed at her.

"I can't imagine why not. You seem an extremely easy person to like. Right, children?" The blonde boy lands his falcon on the shore beside Dorothy and the three charges under her care. His innocent, aqua blue eyes lock with Dorothy's angry, shocked ones, and a calming, soothing effect falls over our angry eyebrowed princess.

"Hold it! Just hold your horses right there!" One shocked little elf, who had plunked a while of courageous selflessness back, stands up at the same height as that of the young, golden haired boy who had just so called him and his friend Hilde "children."

"I don't know if you want to stand guard over this little fairy girl like your drill master said. But me and my gal here, we are NOT children. So we don't be needing your protection, do we, Hilde? We're elves and when danger and bad guys come, we usually just run. None of this bravery and heroism stuff that gets humans killed for us, okay? So just forget about it!" Duo, the smart alecky elf had enough of this victim act that he and Hilde had been mistaken as part of. His limber legs were just itching to make a run for the safety of the trees behind them.

"Come on, Hilde!" He commands after giving the blonde boy a rebellious poke in the chest. He had expected his gal, Hilde, to follow after he turns and starts to walk away---

But Hilde seemed to have other ideas. Her awed eyes were stuck watching the exciting rescue scene across the river, as the archer's pegasus fearlessly flies straight into the burning inferno that once was the palace of the fairies...


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Greetings, Fairy Princess. As you can plainly see, you and your little friend are a bit late for the festivities. But worry not. I've saved a place of honor for you -- at my barbeque." The words of the Fire Nymph blaze with an evil flame directed at the trembling fairy who had just arrived. Standing in the doorway alone, the door had just moments ago been slammed shut behind her, locking Cathrine's exit and escape from dangers inside.

Her own insides were shaking violently. Peaceful fairy Cathrine had never before felt so terribly afraid of anyone as much as this fearsome fire woman. The flames that were her dress were so hot and vivid there was an aura of heatwaves surrounding her every step towards Cathrine.

The Nymph's eyes were so alive with the burning fire of evil that Cathrine had to hold back the screams of fear threatening to overtake her trembling body. The only thing that kept her frightened, senseless mind at ease was the knowledge that Mariemaia had escaped. Assuredly, she had made it to the safety of the Archer and the Elves. For certain, her precious little wings, along with her life, would be safe with a man who had eyes of beauty such as he did.

But as for herself, Cathrine's certainty of her own wings, her own life, was already given up for dead. Tears slip out of her eyes as the evil fire enchantress slinks nearer to her. No longer blocking the view behind her fiery orange and red dress, of the iridescent wings piled on the table. Their wings.

Iria.

Sylvia.

Middie.

Fairy lives just cruelly snuffed out for some evil to gain their powers...

"Middie...Iria...Sylvia...My sisters..." The tears that were threatening to break open fall freely and hysterically, as Cathrine realizes what the disattached wings meant---that the lives of her sisters were no more.

She falls to her knees before the great wickedness that had taken them from their safe palace. Cathrine's tears cloud the eyes that would never see her beloved sisters again...

The Fire Nymph pauses her fire-red nailed attack as her burning eyes fill with the desire to rid the world of yet one more fairy. Suddenly, she takes a strange pity upon the one pixie who did not plead for her own life. She was so overcome with grief for the others, that she seemed to care not for herself--and that selflessness puzzled the Nymph to no end.

"Why do you not beg for your own life? Why do you mourn theirs with your final breath instead, foolish pixie? Do you not consider yourself the most important one in this world? Are you not the one and only person you care for? What manner of creature are you?" The Fire Nymph's questions went far beyond the understanding her evil heart burning in a dark fire could comprehend.

"A beautiful princess of light whom I will not allow you to lay a single finger upon, Fire Witch." From somewhere above a dashing figure on a glorious white steed comes flying in the castle's smoke-filled window. He and the noble pegasus moved as one. The silver-tipped arrow he chooses from its quiver was one that had a magical enchantment to strike a likewise magical target and destroy its evil from inside out---such as a Fire Nymph...

This special target hits its surprised target dead-on. It's liquid silver mercury tip embedded itself deep in her chest, straight and true and strong as its archer's good soul into the long void empty cavern of fire where a heart once existed. Long, long ago...

And the shocked at being defeated so easily by a mere mortal Fire Nymph phases out, vanishing from the room in a puff of smoke, just as the main structure of the palace's timbers come tumbling down in an explosion of fire and smoke. The rumbling of which could be felt as an earth tremor across the river...

Moments earlier...

The explosive puff of smoke that the Fire Nymph phased through was just the beginning. One quick look at the vaulted ceiling above and Trowa knew that it would come down in mere moments. The integral structure of the palace was about to give way.

If he didn't move like lightning wind, his heroic rescue of the fairy princess would be irrelevant as his gaze falls upon the beautiful, auburn haired fairy still on her knees near the entrance front doors.

She didn't seem to know the crashing bits of ceiling descending in fire all around her. Cathrine's wounded heart could see nothing. So in shock and grief was she that she remained frozen still in a pile on the ground--the last true fairy of this land--or any other for that matter--no longer had the will to live.

My powers...my powers...what good are they now? What use are they to my three sisters? Iria, Sylvia, Middie...

Tears blinded her eyes to the imminent danger above her. The domed ceiling began to come down. But amidst her blinding tears, Cathrine sees a hand cut through the darkness. A hand that appeared so suddenly and strong. A hand that gently caressed and dried the cheek of her tear stained face.

"Princess..." His voice was the only sound that could reach her forlorn ears in the midst of the cacophony of terrible crackling screams. It seemed the palace ceiling was crying out as it continued to fall, piece by piece...

"Come with me." The whispered words come with such gentility, such utter peace of goodness and beauty, that even Cathrine's tears are overtaken by them. Her glassy, waterfilled eyes meet his confident ones. This man among men was the only one in the world who could perhaps heal her broken soul.

One hand still caressing her face, the other reaches out in offer of rescue, of protection. All of Cathrine's fears of this human from earlier evaporate in the dark green light of his eyes. Her every sense was pervaded by his scent, his eyes, his strength...

Almost involuntarily, her head not quite working any longer, but her heart was. A heart stirred to life again by the brave courage of this one man. And her small, trembling palm slips slowly into his strong, reassuring one.

The archer kisses the fairy's hand to his lips, knowing she needed him. This delicate creature of perfection needed him to bring her broken soul back to the land where she could still live---and his own pounding heart told him that he needed her too. That she was the one his entire life of searching and adventure was looking for. The beating in his chest as the gaze of dark orchid eyes resounded within him as he realizes she was his destined princess.

The soft, gentle kiss that tenderly passes through their lips told each of their need to be with one another. Cathrine now allowed this human man to do what no fairy would ever let a man do. Never in all the sisterhood that no longer was did the fairies ever let a human's hands touch her skin--save once.

But this man nonetheless breaks this lonely cycle. He takes the trembling fairy in his arms, for Cathrine's weakened legs and wilted, saddened wings could not and he carries her lithe body to where his noble pegasus was dutifully waiting for him despite the fire and embers cascading around its ears. And the Archer named Trowa lifts his beautiful princess to the pegasus' winged back. Neither Cathrine nor Trowa seemed to notice the world crumbling before and behind them as the winged horse makes its daring escape. Both of its riders were so entranced in each other's eyes, it was up to the noble steed to save them all...


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"How does this thing work? GO! Bird! Move forth! I command you!" Princess Dorothy was attempting to mount the large, golden brown falcon whose true master was someone other than herself. The woman of action she believed herself to be was no longer able to just stand by and watch while Trowa was certainly facing danger and peril.

After all, why should he have all the fun all the time?

But the aforementioned "bird" does not "go." She simply turns a curious bird's eye back on a swivelling neck towards the bothersome gnat of an intruder upon her proud, feathered back.

"What's wrong with this creature? Is it not able to fly? Have you not trained him to obey!" Dorothy's usual venom spits out her frustration at the blonde boy's unresponding fowl as she slides off its back.

"Valkyrie--SHE--" Quatre corrects in that soft voice, seemed to be the only one who could calm the raging storm that was Princess Dorothy, "--will only listen to me, that's all." He states with a soft smile at her.

"Well, then, get on here with me! Take me over there, now!" Dorothy's high shrilled voice is interrupted by Mariemaia's equally shrill one. And Quatre was glad. He didn't want to contradict nor argue with his fair beauty about whether or not she should be permitted to enter a dangerous battle. After all, she was a girl and that brave archer's eyes told Quatre to protect her. She was the princess of this realm, he was certain, from her commanding tones. Besides, he himself couldn't bear to see her delicate beauty come to any harm. For inside Quatre's chest, he feels as if this girl somehow shared his same sorrows, pains--his same soul. He knew it from the first moment they met. And he had no intention of letting his pegasus-riding angel leave his side.

But her demanding eyes he couldn't turn away from. Quatre Raberba Winner, Prince and one day, ruler of his own far off kingdom of Noxas, snapped at attention before her ordering gaze. He passed on the torch of protection of the little orange fairy girl to the pair of elves standing gawking as yet at the river's edge. They seemed ready to run at any given second.

"Protect the fairy...please!" He yells back politely as he makes a leap above the roaring din of battle all around, landing expertly on his falcon's back. With an offered hand, that Dorothy suddenly believes herself of ever refusing, he pulls her up and sits her snugly in front of him. His arms simply had to reach around her slim body, rather boldly and improperly, from the strict royal upbringing on the treatment of ladies, to get to the golden reins around his falcon's no longer unpleasant to strangers neck.

After all, if her meek master permitted such a thing from this curious blonde woman, why shouldn't she? The falcon's wings begin to flap, about to take off into the unknown fate befalling one friendly archer and one fairy.

But escaping from the smoke of fire and brimstone all around, spotted in the distance, the pair's fate was no longer unknown...

A pegasus' wings aflutter in the skies, break from the red veil surrounding the destroyed castle.

"Aunt Cathrine! Aunt Cathrine!" The shaking little fists of the orange haired fairy Mariemaia clench when she sees her beloved aunt riding to her in the arms of the archer, astride the white pegasus that had just narrowly escaped the window on fire.

The castle comes down in a fearsome crash of smoke, flame and dust, right on their singed horse's heels.

"Look out! Oh, no!" Hilde the Elf was still glued to the drama playing out before her eyes. They all watched as the pegasus is struck by a large chunk of flames, propelled from the collapsing tower.

"My pegasus! TROWA!" Princess Dorothy shrieks out as the white horse, its wings damaged by the ash, goes down, plunging headfirst into the deep waters of the darkness below.

But to the astonished eyes of the four onlookers on the shore, the quick thinking and acting Archer had managed somehow miraculously to send an arrow catapulting into a tall tree on the shore's banks. It hit direct aim with a platinum threaded rope attached to the arrow's golden head. Trowa agilely swings himself with the fairy clasped firmly in his arms through the air, deftly avoiding the branches and boughs as he swoops in on the rope. Using its momentum and speed to hurl them into a somersaulted vault to the ground below.

He lands, with one dazed lady, safe in his arms, firmly on his two agile feet.

"Whooo!" Elfy Duo was the first to speak after this speechless stunt. "Do that three times fast!" Duo calls out to the archer in amazed respect.

"I bet you couldn't do that any times fast, Duo!" Hilde's girlish elven heart pitters at the courageous, selfless human now walking up to them. One saved damsel in distress was safe in his arms.

"Good job, pal." Duo congratulates Trowa now with a little less than heartfelt grimace and a twisted lip at Hilde.

"Good job! Good job! TROWA! My pegasus!" Princess Dorothy was at venom levels again. The fire across the river almost matched by that of the blonde vixen's voice at her lost friend.

"...Is still alive."

The simple statement cuts off her anger. They turn to see a stranger dressed in threatening dark clothes. His lacquered black hair was pulled tightly into a tail. His face was that of none but one who hailed from the ancient dragon clan...The keepers of the evil dragon...

But this Dragon Master's face had not the evil aura about it any longer. He didn't seem to be out to snuff out their lives--nor did he seem to care for their well being.

One look in his black, black eyes was plain there was nothing there to see, but indifference towards them--towards all in the world with the exception of one being. That singular being rises from the waters behind him with the wounded, winged pegasus at her side.

"Mistress Sallie! Mistress Sallie is her, Aunt Cathrine! She's fine!" Mariemaia already immediately attached herself to the hand of her fairy aunt, still carried in her rescuing hero's arms as yet.

She flutters her tiny wings in joy that her friend Sallie was all right too. That perhaps all could not be totally wrong with the world if Aunt Cathy and Mistress Sallie were with her.

"Pegasus! Oh, pegasus! Are you hurt, baby?" Quatre watches with strange amusement as Dorothy baby talks to her pet. The fire-breathing (just a figure of speech) blonde vixen of just a few moments before was now transformed into a doting, caring "Ma-ma" of her poor, hurt "baby" pegasus. She runs to the sopping wet, dirtied horse and nuzzles its tender nose lovingly.

"Mistress Sallie...?" Cathrine's closed eyelids flutter open as her lifelong friend and guardian takes her above-land appearance, walking on bare feet to where her favorite fairy lay in Trowa's arms.

"I'm here, Cathrine." Sallie's deep, watery voice steadies herself from her own injuries. But just one look in Cathrine's eyes and she knows.

"All of them, my precious one?" Sallie asks, but the answer she was already aware of. She sensed it inside Cathrine's tearful nod, confirming her greatest fears.

"We weren't there when...There's only Mariemaia and I left. And that's only because of..." Cathrine's eyes underlie the fact of her deliverance to Sallie. The saddened blue eyes of the Water Nymph look up to the brave Archer, who had saved the final two adored fairies under her charge with gratitude as Cathrine again breaks down into uncontrollable, sobbing tears in the safety of his warm chest.

"Thank you, brave knight." Sallie meets Trowa's eyes with an understanding passing between them. Sallie puzzles over the disturbed feeling of when she had met eyes like that before...

But whatever the past was, it mattered not. Now, only the present and the future of the last two of their race was what she swore her very existence upon to protect. And this time, she would. Or perhaps...She could use a little help.

Sallie's gaze travels from the deep green eyes of brave Archer Trowa to the mysterious dark black eyes of Wufei, the dragon master who had destroyed his own mystical beasts. For his partner's revenge and for her justice.

And her watery gaze connects the two men's. They consider each other, with a natural suspicion in each, but its overtaken by one's sworn vow of protection and the other's sworn justice for the women who had appeared before both this day---and had changed the course of their lives forever.

All thrown together by the red string of destiny.


	15. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Our strange caravan of unlikely misfits follow the archer through the depths of the forest. Though trust was a hard won commodity in this world (as it is in any) each lost soul finds some degree of trustworthiness in his deep eyes and confident manner. Through the shaded glen of the forest, the elves knowingly lead them through, both pointy eared residents of this area didn't want to leave the adventure of this band of travelers behind, no matter what dangers would lay ahead.

And danger was to be had soon enough. For atop the Nogard Mountain, evil discontentment reigned. Lord Dermail was more than a little perturbed at losing his Dragon Warriors and his Fire Nymph both in the same sitting. Taking down the weak fairy palace and capturing the power of their little wings was supposed to be an easy, simple task. He sent both, not just one of the Dragon Masters, to easily destroy the protective Water Nymph, with the Fire Nymph as backup. But no, the imbeciles could not even defeat the gentle water spirit, let alone fetch him every one of the fairies' magic wings.

His crystal ball told him that there was yet one, perhaps two, of the species still alive. Two sets of pixie wings to pluck as yet before his power could be complete.

Alas! But at least my personally trained sorceress managed to collect the fairy wings she did. That worthless Fire Nymph carelessly left them to burn if not for Sorceress Anne's interference in the matter. Bothersome self-absorbed creature of evil! That fire wench!

He shakes his bearded head at the scene replaying on his crystal glass orb. How that stupid nymph that he himself had gone to a lot of trouble to release from her age-old curse of imprisonment, had wasted so much time taunting the final fairy that the pixie was able to be rescued out from under her! The mistress of fire was taken down and killed by a mystical potioned arrow that a mere human has brandished...

Or had she...

Dermail's wily eyes furrow as he witnesses the phased evaporation of the weak and wounded Fire Nymph once again. This time he noted, to put in the back of his mind, the hateful smile curling on her red lips at the very last second. As if she had discovered a way out of his bondage and thought nothing of double crossing him in that final puff of her own escape smoke.

More important to her burning soul than the evil of conquering the world was the fiery passion for vengeful, punitive measures to be brought against the man who had imprisoned her in that despised, cold world of ice for so long. Her warped mind had believed it was still actually him, living out here in the warmth he had denied her. Sitting there, so pretty, with the long, platinum blonde hair on his throne, waiting for her to destroy him with a viciousness for his blood running through her every vein...

"Nonetheless, we still have a world to take over. Am I not correct, Sorceress Anne?" Dermail looks up when his final, most powerful henchman enters the echoing chambers.

"The fairy dust powder has been added to your cauldron and I believe will suffice for the service required, despite the missing ounces of dusts left ungathered by the Fire Nymph." With a clinical detachment of evil, Anne reports the facts of life and death coldly, to her Wizard Master.

"Fine, then, Sorceress Anne. You hold the key to capturing the last of the magic we require, for the ultimate evil to be released. I lay the responsibility squarely on your shoulders. You know where the final ingredient lies. Do not let me down as the others have---and then, you and I, will rule the entire world!"

Dermail's promises of tyrannical glory and power dangle temptingly before the evil plotting eyes of Sorceress Anne.

"Yes, sir. It will come to pass."

The dark, burgundy draping down cascades around her body as she slinks across the black marble floors to a stone window. As she stares out, evil intent in the eyes behind the glass spectacles that had the power to see straight through a soul, reflecting back the golden light of her target. Shining through the dark, its radiant brilliance in the glass before her eyes, she was locked on the horizon towards it...

Indeed that shimmering was the focus of more than evil Sorceress Anne's. The handsome archer led the battle-worn group through the glen, through the forest and then the thicket to the path familiar to him and Princess Dorothy both.

She and her wounded Pegasus had walked the way with the rest because of its inability to fly. Master Quatre and his trusty falcon walked right alongside her, for reasons obvious to all but Dorothy.

Onward the group travels until it reaches the end where the forest's trees grow sparser and sparser until they finally break off, revealing to the astonished eyes of both fairy and elf, who had never glimpsed this from their well-hidden world of enchantment, a gleaming castle standing on a hill.

Yes, the sheer beauty of the pure white castle, with its golden roofed tiers and majestic flags unfurling proud and high on the wind was all impressive in itself. But the fluttering wings of the pegasi that seemed to dance about its towering peaks were the most breathtaking part of this majestic castle.

The sparkling waters of the moat that led to the interior was completely separated from the land around, save for the wooden drawbridge that would come down at only Trowa or perhaps Princess Dorothy's command.

But before they reach the entrance to beckon its opening passage for them and their newfound friends, the moment they first set foot upon the green, grassy knolls of home and out of the forest, trouble crashes down upon them out of nowhere.

In the split second before, Trowa could sense the danger and he acted on it as always, swiftly and decisively. Taking the fairy princess, still in his arms, and passes her as gently as possible to Sallie's now life filled arms. He orders the Nymph to make a dash to the drawbridge with Cathrine and commands Quatre to take them and the rest of the troupe all to run or fly towards the castle as fast as they could.

Trowa would stand and fight and hold back the forces of evil all by himself to protect them--to protect her--if that's what it took. Sallie, Cathrine, the little fairy, elves and falcon all rush past him at top speed, towards the castle's edge.

Drawing his bow and arrow from his quiver once again, Trowa's quick eyes dart about the edge of the treeline they had just exited from. There was something there--something wicked, something dangerous was watching them, wanting to capture and destroy them...

"This is her evil aura. She herself has come to claim your fairy."

Trowa is almost surprised to find the silent, jet-black haired Dragon Master standing beside him. He too was at the ready with a mystic green sword forming in his hands.

"I must protect her precious beauty." Trowa states, his eyes brimming with the conviction of the love he had fallen into with this fairy.

"Do you stand with me, Wufei?" The archer asks the dark, once evil companion standing beside him. Trowa was sure he used to be a part of whatever wickedness was coming, but now...

Is he truly on the side of good now?

"Not to protect your 'precious' fairy, Archer." Wufei says contrarily. He never abided weak women such as fairies. "But for Shenlong and Nataku, who were so filled with evil they could turn on one another to their deaths."

The one who had poisoned his noble and just dragons was still out there. His greatest minion was about to show herself and justice for his dragon, for his Meilan would prevail by his own hands upon evil Lord Dermail.

"Show yourself, Evil Woman! Or are you too frightened to reveal an ugliness so grotesque to face me!" Wufei's challenging scream towards the forest's edge darkness was not quite Trowa's style, he never imagined there could be any member of the highly rated female sex that could ever be "ugly" or "grotesque" as well as evil. Insults were just not his noble style of confrontation.

However, when in all her dark red and black evil glory, the evil Sorceress named Anne appears from the shadows surrounding the treelined edge, an aura of pure, hateful darkness all about her evil flowing robes, gleaming glasses and pointed witch's headdress...

Well, even for kind hearted Trowa, the words "ugly" and "grotesque" did come to mind now that Wufei mentioned it...


	16. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

"How dare you! How dare you! You insignificant little Dragon fool! Where's your beast now to hide behind its powers? Traitor!" The brimming over with evil voice was insipid with anger at one of her former minion's betrayal.

And he insults my beauty on top of it! You'll pay for that, you beady eyed twit!

"I do NOT hide behind anything! You are the weakling, Woman!" Wufei spits out as Sorceress Anne stands mere feet before himself and the Archer beside him.

Trowa shakes a warning head at his partner's arrogant taunting of a powerful mistress of darkness.

"I'll say it again! Come face me if you have the courage, hideous creature of darkness!" Wufei scoffs as the Sorceress strikes out with a maddening uncalculated shriek at the one who insulted her.

Her attacks miss both the lithe archer and the agile dragon master, over and over again. The two skitter away from her destructive blasts while trying to get a clear move on her, to no avail.

She was well protected inside a dark red cloud of evil surrounding her body.

"That's no way to battle a sorceress, gentlemen." Calling out with confidence, a new voice enters the battle worn scene. The drawbridge begins to descend as a scary snakelike monster swims in a shadow beneath the dark waters, staving off any candidates who would try to dive in and swim to the other side.

Quatre and his falcon find a protective forcefield around the entire castle, from the bottom to its winding tops where the pegasus were still prancing in the air. The flighty creatures were totally unaware of the dangers in the forest's edge below.

But their ignorance did not include their lofty minded master--the king of this majestic castle, who was, as always, first and foremost ready to march into any battle.

Especially one that has such an attractive opponent.

Master Treize considers this with a smirk briefly as he commands the bridge to fall open before him.

"--or a lady." He says coyly, casually batting his royal purple cape behind him. His golden crown glimmers in the sunlight. His tall boots stride across the wooden drawbridge, firmly stepping with the air of assuredness that only came when one was royal ruler of all.

But as he reaches the end of the long bridge, Treize stops short, almost caught off balance, and his innate poise is tested to its limits at the sight of one in particular who was awaiting entrance into his kingdom.

"You!" His calm voice is joined simultaneously by the Water Nymph's as their eyes meet. She never imagined that the human who had caused her so much heartache and trouble in the past would now be standing before her. He was the one who had broken through her defenses somehow and lured Leia out of her fairy world into his own, the man who had taken her frail life unwittingly in her conceiving of another--another who was, mortally, half his...

In her anger and grief then, Sallie had sent this man away from her forest when he had returned a year after. But Leia had already left this world and Sallie was not about to let this accursed man to take another of her fairy princesses away from her. So she didn't tell him about Mariemaia. Instead, she said that Leia had gone to a world where he could no longer hurt her and he should never dare set foot in her land again---

And now she was begging entrance into his. She and his child both. Sallie swallows back her pride for a moment. After all, no matter what was in the past, Mariemaia needed protection now. Even if it meant the protection of her father's castle that Sallie was loathe to accept.

A stray blast from the battling warriors rocks the grassy banks that the elves and fairies stood upon. The cocky smirk he had brandished before now turns into a set jaw of courage.

Treize, the ruler of this vast land of Aissur lets down the barrier protecting the palace from the outside world with a flick of his hand. The same hand was about to summon the guards, at the ready behind him. But first, his other hand reaches out towards Sallie, with a palm of peace, offering her the protection that even her Nymph stubborn mind realizes she needed.

For Cathrine's much desired wings and for Mariemaia's as well...

"Please."

There was something indeed still there in those blue eyes that was convincing and beautiful in the soul Leia had seen and trusted all those years ago...

A long moment of distrust causes Sallie to pause at the offer of his Kingdom's asylum, but another blast of energy from the battle raging behind made some of the more antsy others jump at the chance. They wouldn't let a silly thing like pride stand in their way, especially if it meant the difference in getting their little elven butts fried or not.

"Hey! If this "kind" gentleman wants to help us out of this spot, Water Nymph, I don't see why we should interfere. Do you, Hilde? Up ya go!" Mouth going, he scoops up his friend and shoves her into Treize's surprised, albeit pleasantly, arms. Treize was now far and wide through the lands for having a way with members of the opposite sex.

"Duo! Don't pass me around like I'm a sack of..." Hilde's anger evaporates as her big eyes pop open even bigger at the sight of the human man holding her in his strong arms.

"...potatoes..." Hilde barely manages to finish in a whisper. She was in stunned awe at His Excellency, as his people so addressed their adored King. This elf girl's heart was palpitating so obviously that it makes Duo frown soundly.

I knew I should've grabbed Hilde before and run! I just knew it! Who is this guy anyway? Just because he's some king or something...

Duo gripes to himself as that "guy" gently, yet firmly places the stunned elf girl on his side of the drawbridge. He offers his hand to the next little girl.

"Hey! No playin' favorites!" Duo whines as he puts his hands on his hip, ready to pass the drawbridge next.

But the tiny little fairy's wings sputter across to Treize and when their hands touch, both Mariemaia and Treize feel some strange recognition sweep over them. The orange headed fairy simply got goosebumps, but Treize...Treize could swear that she reminded him of someone. Someone from a long time ago, who was important and precious to him. If only he could remember whom...

But Sallie breaks up the recognition of a memory she had more than a hand in erasing. She did everything in her Nymph powers to make sure he would never try to visit the fairy palace in poor Eixip ever again. He'd never have a chance to lure Mariemaia away from her home as he did her mother. And now, Sallie herself had brought the child to him.

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Sallie's mind just about concedes, when the battle grows fiercer.

The archer's voice calls out a warning as he and Wufei are pressed in by the sorceress' attacks.

"Treize! Take the fairies inside the barrier now!"

Trowa's eyes rest upon Cathrine's. She sensed his concern and worry over her safety in his emerald eyes. They were so clear and true and beautiful.

"At once, brother." Never had Treize seen that burning ember in the eyes of his oh-so-serious and straight sibling. Prince Trowa was known to all his people as the quiet, reserved, more sane of the two adventurous royal brothers. But in the same breath, one must say that if Trowa said something so urgent and fiercely, he must mean to have it done. And with all speed.

His own tactical mind suddenly sees why. The evil Sorceress was making her way closer to the castle, despite Trowa and Wufei's best efforts. They had held her off thus far, but the sorceress' powers of blackness were strong...

A challenge in itself.

Treize's arrogant smirk returns as he takes hold of Sallie's pale arm and says, a bit apologetically, and with a bit of sarcasm mixed in, "Do forgive my forwardness, Water Mistress. But when my quiet brother commands me to do something..."

And with that, he easily tosses the off-balance Sallie, with aforementioned fairy Cathrine clinging tightly to her arms, to the other side of the drawbridge. He gazes at Cathrine for a second and thinks to himself.

_Nice choice, brother..._

He in turn switches places with them, throwing his own fate to the wind. Treize enjoyed the battle almost as much as he did fancying the ladies.

A single wave of his hand brings the rest of his forces standing at the ready at the castle's front gate, ready to join their great king into war and into their deaths if need be. All for him. All for Aissur. All for the Kingdom of the Winged Horses...


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

But before one single member of the royal guard managed to cross the drawbridge to cover their adventurously bold king's back, before Duo gets a chance to make a leap up to the bridge's edge that Sallie, Cathrine, Mariemaia and Hilde were already standing safely upon, before another second ticks by...

A stream of powerful red energy with the strength of none before rocks the bank's edge like a 6.1 earthquake. Everyone, inside and out of the castle, is rattled off their feet.

Everyone--castle guards, elf and dragon master alike--all, that is, with the exception of one pair of experienced brothers.

Prince Trowa had a natural agility he had been born with and had been successful in teaching his elder brother a few pointers on balance. Though, Treize's stance was unpolished next to Trowa's unwavering one.

Ah, well, I'll get the hang of this soon. After all, a lady awaits...

Gaining his balance, Treize stands beside his brother before the wicked Sorceress who had just caused the world to tremble with a mere glance of her eyes.

"I can see why." Treize mumbles aloud.

Trowa, out of the corner of his eye, gives his sibling a questioned glance. For many years of seeing this happen, countless times in fact, he had become aware that his brother, the ruler of Aissur, His Majesty King Treize, was about to unleash his greatest, most powerful weapon against this evil, unstoppable woman, immune it seemed to everything else tried thus far--

For what woman in the world could deny King Treize's undeniable charm?

"You'd look so much better if you wore that lovely hair of yours down and not done up in that hat, I'm sure."

In utter disbelief of what this mere human mortal had just said to her, Sorceress Anne, never once before in her long life, had this much charm flourished upon her by a man---

And it makes her stop and take notice.

"What did...you dare...say, human?" Anne's angry heart of evil had no room for flattery and flirting. She was in disbelief that any man would even try it on her, especially when she knew herself, all of her life, that she was ugl--

"Without that hat, if your hair was down and flowing as it was meant to be, you would be quite a beautiful lady." Treize lays it on thick (or was he?) but all that charm he wielded so expertly does seem to have the correct effect today.

The earthquaking, trembling world ceases abruptly the moment the word "beautiful" escaped from his lips.

But the Sorceress' enchantment in his blue eyes is interrupted by an urgent call from Hilde to her friend still out in harm's way...

"Come on, Duo! Here's you chance! Come on! Jump!" Hilde cries, reaching out for Duo's hand. He had gotten to his feet the exact moment the quaking stopped.

"I'm comin', Hilde!" Duo screams out. Just as he is about to get a running start...

"Uhn, uhn, uhn." Anne blasts the riverbank again and it now completely separates itself from the collapsing drawbridge's edge.

The cacophony of screams and shouts of everyone inside were almost enough to mask the silent entrance of a pair of blonde riders atop a falcon swooping down from somewhere in the trees. Valkyrie tried to make it into the castle and save some people near the edge who might be sent plunging down into the frightening moat when the bridge goes down...

Golden wings come swooping in. Dorothy, with Quatre in the backseat as it were, aims the flying beast she was upon straight towards the bridge's edge.

"There's no admittance." Anne says devilishly as she sends yet one more bolt of energy right at the bird. It swerves but couldn't escape the entire blast. Feathers fly and Quatre as well, as the bolt knocks him right off his falcon's back, onto the grassy shore near where Duo was also downed.

"No! Turn back! Bird, you've dropped your master!" Dorothy shrieks and the falcon missed it's rider more than it wished to obey her, but brave Quatre was a selfless knight.

"No! Keep going, Valkyrie! That's an order! Hold on tight, Princess! Valkyrie, dive!" Barely able to stand, Quatre yells out as he had never done before. The falcon, despite Dorothy's naysaying all the while, makes it's obedient trained dive as fast as the wind, no, faster. Her sudden burst of speed managed to escape another of Anne's blasts, diving right into the safety of the kingdom's force shield.

Dorothy, boy she had a tight grasp, was still holding on despite the blinding speed. Just in time, for she and her falcon catch a few last guards before they fall into the murky drink below.

"Oooh! Blasted humans!" Anne's red hot anger sends torrents of hot blasts again and again at the shield surrounding the despised castle of light. It's magical barrier sparked at each hit, but it holds---so far.

Their kingdom under attack, both the Prince and the King go into action. Trowa draws his bow and special tipped arrows as Treize dashes up to the Sorceress.

She is taken aback by how close his face comes to her, a hypnotized look in her eyes as his swift hands remove the glasses right off her face--

And plants a quick kiss on her blood red lips as he does so.

"There. That's a start, Lady." A look of utter shock and...something else...was on her astonished face when his lips pull away. Her mind was in such a tizzy she didn't know what to do---

So someone else appears to do that "something" for her.

"Sorceress Anne! What ARE you doing!" Lord Dermail snakey voice enters the scene, almost shocked at his evil protegee allowing any human to touch her and kiss her at that. It left her so flustered that she knew not what she was doing anymore.

"Really, child! Do not be fooled by this mortal king's ploys." Dermail rolls his eyes and sends a wave of magic that throws Treize far away, crashing the king into one elf who had been trying to sprint away unnoticed.

They fall into a pile of arms and legs and capes together to the hilly ground.

"Fire, brother...At him, not her..." Treize commands weakly. That blast of raw energy was pretty bad on the human body, and yet his human heart goes out to the lovely, misguided sorceress that the old magician had called Anne.

What a splendid name for you, Lady...

That was his last thought as he passes out atop one wriggling elf.

Hey! Get off!

At his King's command, Trowa fires his magic thwarting blue tipped arrow straight and true, aimed directly at Dermail's chest where a heart might have been. He regained himself at the same time Wufei rushes the evil magician who he now had a vendetta for Meilan's sake, and he screams out, growling.

His green, energized sword swings in towards Dermail, the same as Trowa's arrow. But neither of the attacks make it. Dermail laughs as he easily bats away Trowa's arrow and telekinetically turns it around to plunge straight into his former Dragon Master's chest.

Then with the power of his mind, Dermail throws the wounded clan member atop the Archer, who was already reloading and takes them both down.

"This is far too easy!" He chuckles easily. "You make it so enjoyable. How long did you think YOU could stand up against me? Ha ha ha."

"As long as we have something to stand for!" Trowa calls back defiantly. He tries to pull the arrow from Wufei's chest.

"As long as we see this castle, we will--" Quatre begins to add when Dermail's eyes light up with an idea.

"Ah, well. Perhaps I'll take even that away from you, brave warriors." He says with an evil sarcastic smirk and with a wave of his hand, all five men--elf, dragon warrior, human alike--standing against, all disappear in a flash of bright light.

"This castle will be mine by the time they return--IF they can return, that is. This castle and the world! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" Dermail's laughter echoes through even lands far beyond...


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Beneath the forest's cover of trees, night begins to fall. And the occupants of a horse drawn carriage no longer had the vista of their ocean's shores they'd left behind at home.

In the dark, not even boring woodland scenery thus far seen at present could keep their minds off such an unpalatable situation for some of the more brooding occupants held within the carriage's bumpy confines.

How did I let myself get dragged into this?

The platinum blonde haired man thinks sourly to himself. Neither long trips away from his beloved Sanc Kingdom nor lengthy visits to either the catty Princess Dorothy or her long winded cousin King Treize were things Milliardo was looking forward to yet again.

And now, he had even one more problem to add to this trip's undelectable bits--and this one right at the moment was staring him right in the face, literally.

Why does he keep staring at me with those eyes boring into my skull? It's as if--well, I don't know what it's as if--Fine! Go ahead and stare at me, "Heero." Just keep your beady eyes off my sister! Imagine! She wanted to go off gallivanting on this dark road, all alone. The coach driver not able to see or hear a thing what happens inside this carriage! It's a lucky thing for you, little sister, that I decided to come. You're far too innocent and naive to understand what goes on in the inner workings and minds of the mysterious man you named Heero. Hmph! He wouldn't even give us his real name and I'm expected to trust him with my precious younger sister!

Heero seemed to be surveying Milliardo with as much suspicious animosity. The two naturally didn't get along. One was so dark and mysterious, the other a total contract, pale and straight jawed. So both men just continued to stare silently. Neither seemed to take notice of the third occupant of this carriage ride. The sister and subject from which all the suspicous and distrust stemmed.

Oh, really, you two. Sigh...

The Princess Relena was not as oblivious or naive as her brother believed her to be. In fact, just watching him fawn over her protectively would be almost funny if it was not so frustrating. After all, she was an independent woman now. Just about, anyway. And she didn't need her brother's supervision in her choice of who she does or does not visit, or where she goes. Or for that matter, her choice of bodyguard/companion.

After singlehandedly slaying that sea monster that attacked us! I'm appalled that you don't completely trust such a noble courageous man as Heero with our kindom's safety or mine! Just because he's not very talkative or outgoing about where he comes from! He still deserves for his heroism our kingdom's full gratitude. You have mine, too, Heero...

The Princess gazes up out of the corner of her eyes, femininely, shyly at the dark figure in the dark, sitting across from her (Thank you very much, Milliardo...) silently in the rolling carriage. Not a move nor a sound had come from him since they started this journey miles and miles ago.

Well, I've had enough of this silence!

"You really didn't have to come, Milliardo. I know how you dread seeing King Treize. I can't imagine why, though. He's always been so polite and gentlemanly to me." Relena comments, trying to get a voice or a sound into the carriage other than the crunching wheels rolling and rolling.

"Of course he is, Relena. You're a woman." Milliardo says shortly with that "hmph" of his attached so smugly. He knew Treize's reputation with the ladies and shook his head that even his little sister could have fallen for that man's transparent "charms."

That said, the silence envelops the car again.

All right. That's it!

"If either of you doesn't say something right now, I shall scream! Ohhhhhhhh!"

Before she gets a chance to fulfill her childish threat, a real scream overtakes Relena's threatened one. She sees something outside of the carriage's dark window that immediately strikes fear into her girlish heart and Heero propells himself out the door, his mysterious black metal weapon drawn and ready as he jumps to the roof and balance himself there.

A red-orange ball of flame explodes a deep crater in the dirt road before them. The horses and carriage come to a screeching halt. Horses and all go down into the hole with a crash. Thunderous red fire and flame engulf the crater all around them...

"Milliardo! What's happening! Milliardo!" Shaking herself conscious, taking hold of her rattled body, Relena finds herself trapped inside the overturned crashed carriage. She was scared out of her mind-- and even more frightened that her older brother might be hurt or worse.

Feeling around the cramped carriage, Milliardo was nowhere to be found.

"Brother?" Relena whispers as she begins to tremble. Never once in her young, sheltered life had she felt so alone.

FLASH!

A wave of hot fire sears across the landscape. Relena's wide opened mouth was about to let out a most wretched scream but a hand comes from nowhere to cover her lips, halting the yell.

"Shh! Your brother's safe. He's looking for whoever attacked the carriage. And we don't want to call anymore attention to this carriage--to you. So be quiet. Nod if you understand." So exacting, so militaristic, Heero's words come to her ears. But none could be more comforting to this princess' frightened mind than that. Perhaps he knew that as he knew things that no one else in this world seemed to know. Relena found her trust in Heero implicit, especially now in her moment of need.

So she nods with fear-stricken eyes, meeting his confident eyes in the dark of the upturned carriage.

"Good." Heero himself nods back reassuringly. "He ordered me to get you out of here. I've unhitched the team and saddled one up. We're to get on and run it as hard and as fast as we can. Straight to the Aissur castle." Heero, with the strength and stealth of a wild cat, lifts the seat pinning Relena to the ceiling of the upside down carriage. He checks her freed legs to make sure they weren't broken. He takes the end of her inside long petticoats and forcefully rips them a full two feet shorter. Her shapely bareskin calves and lower thighs were now exposed for him to see.

Relena gasps, but she doesn't scream as she imagined she might have at such rough hands.

"You'll ride better. Won't get caught in the way." His monotone voice shows no emotion as Heero puts a warning finger to his lips in the dark.

He scoops up the shellshocked princess in his muscular arms and carries her to the horse. He mounts her, not side-saddle as gentle Relena was taught to ride, but she was not about to argue with her Heero. Then he takes his off his own blue cape and secures it around her neck, tugging the hood up over her lovely honey gold hair. Their eyes lock for a moment. Relena's were scared while Heero's were unguarded in the dark. Purposely, he diverts his furrowed eyes and hurriedly mounts his own horse, beginning to lead it out with Relena's, just as another blast of fire incinerates a tree only a few feet away.

"Oh no!" Relena's sealed tight lips can't help but squeak out. For in that flash of brilliant light, close to that burning tree, was the silhouette of her brother and he'd been hit with a falling branch on fire.

"Milliardo! Heero, I must go to him!" Relena was about to jump off her horse, but Heero's hand holds her own as his fingers squeeze around hers on the horse's taut reins.

"I'll go help him. You just leave. There's danger here." Heero's eyes skitter about the dark landscape to where that fiery blast emerged from.

"But...Milliardo!" Relena does feel the need to argue this. She didn't want to leave her beloved brother behind, especially if he might be hurt.

"I will protect him for you, Princess. He wants you to go and be safe. We'll fight whatever this is together and then catch up to you in Aissur. Just go as fast as you can." Heero takes charge of the situation. The steady firmness in his eyes and voice make Relena nod obediently.

She believed that if anyone could, this boy named Heero could see her brother through this and keep him safe.

"And don't look back." His serious voice commands lowly. Relena hears the echoes of which even as Heero smacks her horse's rear and it takes off in a quick gallop. Relena catches one last glimpse of Milliardo standing. His broad sword was at the ready, and that determined look was on his stoic fast. It was one Relena had seen so many times before when her brother was deep in thought, preparing for battle...

And this blue princess hoped and prayed that it would not be the last time she saw her Milliardo alive...

"Protect him for me...Heero..." A whisper on her lips as her horse sprints off against the hot blowing winds.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Milliardo knocks away the burning branch that had been almost aimed at him, it seemed. This royal monarch had heard of such things as natural firestorms---but his gut instinct told him that these attacks were anything but natural, though as yet, he could not find their cause.

A blast of flame that could dig a crater in the road had stopped and almost killed them and now this tree was going up in smoke mere feet from where he stood.

It could be a coincidence, some might even call it a fluke of nature. But Milliardo was not one to believe in coincidence.

He draws his sword, catching a glimpse of horses racing away in the dark. He was certain he was now alone in the pitch black forest to face whatever was out there. His little sister's life and safety was more important to him than anything in the world. He would stake his own life, stand and fight whatever--or whoever--was out there gunning for them...or him...

"King of the North...King Peacecraft...King of the cold, cold north..."

A woman's song wafts on the hot winds from all around him. It was a chant calling to him on musical strains, repeating over and over, calling out, taunting...

"Who calls for me?" Bravely Milliardo answers the wind. His eyes strain to see a small flicker of a candle's light floating towards him slowly from the distance.

"Don't you remember? We met a long, long time ago." The female voice was dripping with flirtation. The king tried to recognize it, but to no avail as it comes closer and closer, wavering in the darkness.

"No, I don't recognize your voice. What is your name?" Milliardo finds the voice alluring in its vagueness. He needed to know who she was, now more than ever.

"My name, he he he..." The lilting chuckle that accompanies her melodic voice would almost have been a pleasure to hear if only he could tear his eyes away from the entrancement the single flickering flame of candlelight was holding over him.

"Don't you know me, noble king? Come closer and I will show you all..." Her voice croons. Milliardo, almost in a trance, walks towards the light.

"Don't you remember how good it felt to hold my skin to yours? Can't you recall the fire that burned within us when our lips first touched? Can't you feel that fire now, king? Can't you feel it burning here inside your chest---the same as here inside of mine?" Appearing in a red-orange haze of fire surrounding her, the woman whose voice beckoned to him takes Milliardo's entranced hand in hers, pressing it to her chest over where a heart once burned strong, blazing in passion for him. Her warped mind saw this heir of the same Peacecraft king as the one she had known so well, with a passion that was frozen--ice cold--when he had betrayed her love for a silly, futile thing called peace.

"You, out here, in this warm world and I trapped inside the cold world you put me in...to be alone for thousands upon thousands of cold, empty years. It doesn't seem fair, does it?" The Fire Nymph of war finds herself enjoying his touch despite all the hatred pent up she had nurtured for him. She finds his crystal blue eyes and his long, flowing platinum hair even more attractive than she did, all those years ago. There's something so much more tantalizing now than before---something different and very, very, extremely...

There's no time for this now...I will not make such a mistake again. I will destroy you now, King Peacecraft. I will now extract my revenge.

"It's because nothing in this world is fair, o noble king." And with those parting words, she separates herself from him and takes a step back, letting the fire blazing in her, built up over the years, take over---and kill the one who had entombed her fire in ice...

"Die, noble king, die." Her calm voice was a mismatch for the fires broiling inside her empty heart for revenge. It came in the form of a sun fire hot orb held between her hands. Hands that were about to launch that orb point blank into the one chest of the man she so despised, burning a hole into the heartless heart who had seen fit to capture her in an ice chamber---and then, and then, she would kill herself along with him in the process.

Why not? I have nothing to live for? Perhaps in death we can finally be together...Why do I still think this way?

Her dark thoughts of negativity cause the orb to grow and grow. She wasn't satisfied enough to simply destroy the hated king of the north. Now she wanted to blow up half the forest and herself along with it.

The most dangerous opponent is one who has nothing to live for.

Heero hears the thought float through his mind as he rushes forward and takes aim at the firebrand of a woman.

Or perhaps even more dangerous is the one who DOES have something to live for---someone to live for...

With his sworn promise to the fair Princess Relena still on his lips, Heero pulls the trigger with deadly accuracy.

Seeing this, King Milliardo's noble heart stirs him to awaken in this moment and throws himself in the path of the bullet--shielding his enemy for some unknown reason.

However the bullet continues to pass through his bloody shoulder to its true target---to that of a heart that existed no longer.

The Fire Nymph sinks to her knees at the bullet's---ahem---magic dart's impact. It goes straight through her heart and the orb of energy in her hands dissipates as she goes down without so much as a scream.

"Another one of those ought to get rid of her permanently." Heero coldly walks closer, seeing the foolish king's shoulder as only an unfortunate fleshwound. He was just about to plug her again---this time directly aimed at her head.

"End it for me, then. But please, allow the king to finish off the war-like heart whose only crime was to fall in love with him and his peace...I'd rather die by his sword than any other. Good wins the battle over evil, after all..."

So Heero steps aside, though he keeps the gun trained on her as Milliardo steps forward. Her eyes beckon to him again, but this time with something different. For when Heero's bullet had passed through them both, the tiniest bit of human blood found its way into her, causing her to become mortal and able to die---

And also to feel regret and able to love again.

Milliardo too gained something from this mystical merging as well.

"I don't even know your name, but I know you're not truly evil. True evil in this world does not have one drop of red blood in their veins. Look here." Milliardo touches gingerly the wound on her chest. "This blood means that a heart still beats inside you. You do not have to let revenge rule you any longer. You have defeated me already, Fire Nymph. In the name of peace, I concede to you."

Milliardo's upbringing taught him peace at all costs, and it starts with the peace in your own heart---

"And in the name of love, I concede to you as well."

His lips overtake hers as something in the moment assures him that she was one. She was the one who needed his love, his protection---his infinite peace...

"My name is Lucrezia." She whispers in his arms.


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

...A bunny rabbit's feet were gently hopping up and down, the gust of a wind catching its breath...

A million miles away, somewhere far, far in the distance, ears that could hear beyond hearing pick up these sounds familiar to his woodland senses. They grew stronger and stronger as his consciousness floats slowly back to reality.

The elf named Duo slovenly lets his eyes rest as his ears take the quivering sounds in. A rustling of trees, a gasping of air, the hot sun burning down in his face, and then, the unsheathing of metal.

Metal? Hey! That sound doesn't belong in the forest!

His big blue eyes snap open at the one unfamiliar sound that didn't belong in his world of mischief and forest play in the glen he hailed from.

His eyes are greeted by another's--equally large, perhaps larger--and the dark look in those eyes staring into his, was fearful to say the least--and Duo was not one for least, saying anything.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The peaceful dreams his unconscious state had afforded him were gone in a flash of quick trodden feet. He scurried back unceremoniously on his elven hands and knees. That hot gust of wind in his fantasy realm a snort coming from the huge nostrils of a half-human face breathing threateningly into his slumbering one.

And one look was enough as he backs away from the creature to see that the large black brown horse with the head and torso of a man at the top was a centaur. He stood a full twenty hands high, with equally giant half human hands wrapped around one Aissur king's gasping neck, holding the entire man up in the air as if he were nothing.

Well, that was all more than enough for Duo to clearly see that this centaur was no bunny.

"Who are you! Put him down!" In his pounding head, Duo could see Hilde's face, her hands on her hips, shaking her head, telling him to think before he spoke. And this was one time that Duo wished he had listened to her.

"WHO AM I? WHO AM I! HA HA HA HA!" The booming, thunderous voice was the one in Duo's nightmares, the reaper who had come to claim him and his treehouse someday.

As the centaur takes an unforgiving step forward, powerful hands still clutching at a gasping for life Treize's throat, Duo does what he does in every nightmare he had ever had and lived to tell the tale about.

He takes to his feet and runs.

He runs like he had never run before in his life, disappearing deep into the strange forest's dark depths.

"HA HA HA HA!" The evil centaur, instead of trying to stop the elf, begins cackling at the simple cowardice just displayed. "Are elves such lilly-livered, spineless cowards to even attempt to aid their allies!" The roaring laughter pauses when the human he was strangling manages to get a word in edgewise, despite the handhold about to squeeze hard about his kingly neck.

"Perhaps centaurs cough are cowards cough for not having the cough backbone to give cough chase."

King Treize manages to choke out the challenge. His swift mind had awakened minutes ago to discover this lunk headed, behorned creature poking at he and his companion in the mysterious dark forest they must have been transported to by that Wizard Dermail attacking the castle of Aissur.

My people...my kingdom...my pegasus...

Treize closes his eyes, praying for inspiration or a miracle to get him out of this situation as his obvious ploy works, to get the dim witted centaur to chase after the only other person in this dark forest, who had just fled before Treize's eyes. And all hopes of returning to the kingdom he was sworn to protect and lead had fled with him...

Taking the challenge from this snivelling intruder into his forest---a forest in which no other creature survived due to the centaur's mangling of any being that dared stand in his cove in the far west.

As the centaur finally stops his crashing hoofbeats, he looks up to the silent as death treeline above and before him. Treize finds his waning body too weakened from the cut off air to utilize the centaur's lack of attention upon him to even try to reach for the steel bladed sword that had slipped back into its sheath. Mentally, his mind and soul were commanding his body to do what it could not as his once strong life force begins to concede, giving way, as inspiration failed him for the first time in his "born under some lucky star" lifetime of death defying adventures. He would never quest beside his courageous brother again...

But who needed inspiration when one had miracles? Like a god of death out of the dark forest from boughs high above, unseen by wit, unnoticed by quickness, one heretofore cowardly elf rises to the occasion. He miraculously leaps from the tree limb directly above the caught off guard centaur and dives directly onto the creature's bare back.

He hangs on for dear life as he grabs onto the monster's angered horns and Duo gives the ivory sharps a bandied strong tug backwards, causing the blinded by pain centaur to lose his grip around Treize's dying neck. And he drops the king to the ground.

The centaur himself roars back in pain. One elf was still doggedly attached to his injured hornware. Rearing back, a terrible sound echoes from his husky throat and the centaur's fists bat at the bothersome "flea" on his back, blindly missing every time.

The treewise elf was just one second too fast for his sluggish enormity.

Choking, panting, he lifts his battleworn body from the faced down dirt he was so unceremoniously dropped in. Treize marvels for a second at the elf boy's agility, his speed, his swiftness and at the way his eyes were almost laughing and dancing with adventure. The energy the exuberant youth was displaying was with courage that he himself doubted the waif had possessed just moments earlier.

So with a newfound respect for the young man, Master Treize stands tall with the drive this young elf shows he must have. He draws his broad sword with the pride one knight held only for another...

STAB!

Straight and true, Treize's long arm thrusts the steel blade deep into the wide chest of the centaur. It's angry, ferocious growling eyes look up at Duo----who was still managing to cling tightly to its bucking bronco back and yelling 'yee haw' at the excitement and thrill of the ambush---and then looks dumbly at the sword plunged deep into his chest.

With a big poof, the mythical creature blinks out of existence and the elf who had been having a ball, lands flat on his bottom with one final "yee haw!"

"I did it! I did it! I can't believe I did it! Just wait till I tell Hilde that I, Duo the elf, slayed me a ferocious centaur! Woooo heee!" Duo sings out, splat on the ground. The thrill of his first victory over evil had overtaken him.

"Indeed you did, my young friend. Indeed you did." Treize sheathes the sword that, in reality, had slayed the beast. "Now, to find our way back to tell your Hilde--and to rescue my kingdom." Treize's amused smile turns determined and steely as he offers the jolly elf a hand up.


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Meanwhile, mountains away, in the land of the two rising suns...the far east...he comes back to consciousness with her name on his lips.

He could hear her lilting giggles in his heart, the soft touch of her skin, the entrancing way her bright eyes could reach his soul. It was not a mere fairy tale of the imagination. He was certain his princess was real this time--not just the illusion of shimmering leaves and tender pearls in wisps of lavender and purple that so often haunted his dreams at night since he was young child.

No, this stable young man was not one for day dreams or frivolities. He was sure this lovely fairy was the one he had been dreaming visions of--the one foretold to his heart, long ago, by destiny...

He had shared these visions only with his brother. The vivid recollections were not mere fantasies, his brother had assured him. They had to search out this land of magic where the waters sprung eternally still and the woodland flora and fauna bloomed in an array of color and light---and where the legendary unicorn was resting in secrecy.

"Your quest for the city in your dreams will surely lead you to your destiny, my brother. Find it and it will lead you to her..."

Faintly in the back of his mind, Prince Trowa could hear his brother, King Treize, not once laugh at his silly dreams, but rather smile upon them. Treize was a firm believer and a dreamer himself of the fated meeting with your predestined mate.

Their quest, led by Trowa's dreams, had brought them to the gates of Mythica and they both glimpsed the forbidden beauty of the golden horned steeds, long forgotten from existence.

They had found the land of sunlit magic, yes, but an unspoken warning came to them in an elderly woman's tones. A large, wizened eyed unicorn had come to them at the gate, stopping them with words they could only hear inside their heads.

"None but those who hold a pure heart and cleansed soul may enter Mythica. You are told."

Her wise voice was heard in chanting rhyme and was a solemn reminder to Treize of his past sins and certain impurities that would not allow him entrance into this untouched land.

However, Trowa, standing beside his brother, heard nothing. His own heart was pure, devoid of crime. There was only love for a dream girl of his fantasies.

"Dreamer of dreams, return with the purest of pure---the lovely creature of light from your dreams, Prince, and you will find sanctuary from the world without."

That thought was all in Trowa's head as the unicorn vanished from their eyes. The words had embedded themselves deep in his soul.

"The lovely creature of light...the purest of pure..."

He comes back to reality from both visions of now and yesterday. He was certain he had met that creature, that he had found her at last. Their destiny was bound by fate.

She was the one his soul and heart longed for. She was the one he needed...and she needed him, too...

"Cathrine..."

"Enough already of that silly fairy's name!"

A sharp, critical voice breaks into the young prince's daydreaming. "How many times do you have to say it, fool prince!"

Trowa opens his eyes to find a pair of dark ones staring back. They were a far cry of those that enveloped his lavender silhouetted dream.

"Dragon master? Where are we?" Trowa forgives Wufei's taunting, though he didn't much overlook the jibe of "silly" towards his tender beautiful fairy. He jumps immediately to his nimble feet.

"How the clouds am I supposed to know!" Wufei, angry as ever, angry even at the whole, tiresome situation he was thrown into somehow.

By that no good, Water Nymph. I know she's at the root of it. Tormenting woman!

Growling at the tall prince standing before him, he chucks down the arrow that belonged to the Archer Prince that Dermail had sent sailing into one vicious Dragon master.

"In the east, the far east, from the look of the landscape." Wufei sighs, finally giving a straight answer to the "noble" prince he was stuck with.

"Hmph." Wufei grits his teeth, ignoring the pain of the magic arrow that had left him powerless.

"We must return to Aissur." Trowa states with a take-charge attitude. "She's calling for me." He adds simply and quietly. His swift, long legs take off in a fast paced run in the direction that his heart told him was home---to his Cathrine.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'm not following you, you know! I have absolutely no reason to return with you to that damn kingdom...Especially not for a reason as stupid as yours! Hmph! A woman fairy! Can it get any worse!" Wufei snorts with a grunt at the foolish human he had the bad luck of being transported away with.

"Magic stealing arrowheads..." Wufei broods darkly. "I have no reason to return at all." He stands in his dark robe, his thoughts even darker as he crosses his tanned arms sourly. But then, it suddenly creeps up inside of him. "Except...

They'll pay for this. Those morons from Nogard Mountain! That haughty Sorceress Anne and her demented spectacles, bearded old Dermail, too! They always ordered me and Meiran around as if...

Meiran...

Before his mind even registers it, his body fights the painful arrow just ripped from his chest.

Thank you very much, Mr. Archer. Hmph

His slippered feet are off and running, with his sworn pledge to Meiran on her dying breath, to take up her cause----and that of that Nymph's---for justice.

So to free Meiran's soul, still tied to the evils of this world, he would do exactly that. For his partner, Meiran, for the warrior soul in Sallie---and most of all, for his justice to be served...

If Trowa's anxious mind had a moment to smile, he would. He had noted with a certain degree of respect, the dark haired man had indeed followed him into the dark trodden path into the mountains above. He slowed just a bit, for this paces to join. After all, they were both after the same ends---to rescue and face those in the castle of Aissur and defeat the evils threatening this world.

One man for justice, and the other man for love.

And they head into the dark heights where harpies ruled supreme in the darkness above...

Harpies were that kind of evil creature who had no meaning in this world except to do as their name and hideous faces suggested and well, harp on torturing innocent people.

Prince Trowa had only seen such ugliness once and that was from a distance. He, several years ago, far too young a child to accompany his older, adventurous brother into a quest of the east, was allowed to come and only watch from the safety of his guarded pegasus entourage above the treeline. He watched as his brother slipped above the clouds and disappeared into the mountain Suoedih in his quest for Arodnap's Box---an ancient treasure that held the key to staving off all harpies.

For inside the box was what they feared the most----a magic mirror that could blink any harpie who was unfortunate enough to gaze upon her own ugliness, right out of existence.

Young Trowa had seen this happen firsthand, right before his eyes, when his daredevil brother came streaking out of the clouds towards Suoedih on his own noble pegasus.

A string of the harpies were hot on his trail and they knew certain doom was inside the box held in his hands. Aloft his pegasus, Treize had opened the box and produced the looking glass in his hands. The harpies trailing him were struck down in a split second at their own glares. They fell to the dark depths of the moat that surrounded their lair, where giant eels and razor tooth sharks lay in wait.

The long sought after treasure was recovered that day. Trowa saw it all replay in his mind as he steps up to the dark moat from the mountain he had just expertly scaled and climbed. It seemed the only way to cross was, unfortunately, to pass this deadly, dank moat and go undetected by the harpies inside.

Today, Trowa, prince of the land of pegasus, had not a single steed nor Aradnop's Box to his name, to safely carry him and his friend over it.

What would you do in such a situation, Treize?

Trowa asks silently, already knowing his wily brother's answer.

Improvise.

So he does, and loads his trusty bow with a special arrow fro the quiver on his back. His aim was sure and true and the tip embedded itself into a pillar high on the roof of the stone structure the harpies called home.

With a securing tug, the Archer leaps up to a nearby tree limb. He firmly ties the opposite end of the strong wired rope attached to the arrow head around the tree's trunk.

He was on it a second later, walking the tightrope as though he had been trained to do it, all his life. Even that, unmatched for the natural agility and balance this man possessed above all others. He hadn't a fear in the world of the dizzying heights below him.

Unlike one Dragon Master. He had watched with widened eyes the Archer's waltz over a thin beam line of string---and without a net.

Wufei had always prided himself on being the most fearless, most courageous, most brave warrior--high atop his powerful dragon. But in reality, Chang Wufei, Dragonmaster warrior, was most unafraid of heights seated atop his flying dragon.

But was not most unafraid doing it on his own.

"Come, Wufei. It's the only way to cross." Trowa's low, whispered voice from the middle of the rope already, says beneath the howling winds. It was just loud enough for Wufei to hear as he stood stock still on the tree limb before the rope.

"Just put one foot in front of the other---keeping balance in mind at all times." Trowa advises. Wufei listens to the sound of his calm voice, and steps forward, one foot at a time.

Suddenly, his eyes bug out as he realizes the height they were defying.

"--And whatever you do, don't look down!" Perfectly balanced Trowa realizes his warning comes a second too late.

Unbalanced Wufei's teetering causes the entire rope to shudder. It took all of Trowa's immense balance skills just to keep atop it himself. But poor Wufei...

The eels and rotagilla appear greedily in the swirling dark waters of the most anxiously awaited falling treat from the sky above. Their mouths were open and drooling in anticipation to eat him...

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Wufei lets out a scream---a scream loud enough to waken the sleeping harpies in their lair inside, Trowa fears.

He lets an arrow fly, keeping his balance, as his arrow zings across and magically wraps around the tightrope, hanging down, so all Wufei had to do was grab hold of this lifeline proffered...

And he does---just.

In the nick of time, his feet just being missed by the rotagilla's snapping rows of teeth, the young man scurries up the line as fast as he possibly could.

Trowa sighs in relief, but it doesn't last long, for out of the corner of his eye, he spots a fearful sight of nightmares. One from his boyhood, and known to all as a harpie...

SLASH!

Her razor sharp nails just narrowly miss anything vital as Trowa makes his body leap and twist in the air around her flailing wings as she falls. She had never seen his fast knife slice at the bat wings on her back.

"Hurry, Wufei! There are more coming!" Trowa, landing back on his feet, on the rope, of course, calls back to his dangling friend.

Wufei chooses to use his sure and steady hands on the rope, rather than the Archer's not as easy as it looks, path on foot. Hand over hand, quickly, Wufei hurries up, ignoring the chomping sounds below him.

He was already now on the safety side of the opposite edge and Trowa turns to help his travelling companion. He gave Wufei a hand up before the next swarm of screeching harpies arrived.

But it wasn't fast enough. The Queen of the Harpies herself--the swiftest and most deadly of the batch of the shrieking women with wings---descends upon them. The Prince's wide back was an open target and just begged for her bird like talons to rife over and tears his insides out in a killing blow...

"Watch out!" Wufei's shout was only second to his quick movements. He didn't forget the code of warrior's----a life for a life.

Though he was not the heroic type of weak minded men, he didn't like to be indebted to anyone. He knew full well this human prince has just saved his life and this Dragon Master paid every one of his debts off in the end...

Though he didn't have full use of his magic powers as Dragon Master, due to one unfortunate arrow, ahem, Chang Wufei still possessed his powers as a warrior. Raw strength and might sent his flailing body upwards. His muscular legs gave a powerful kick right in the fanged harpie's teeth. She screeched horribly as she shrinks back from the man who had harmed her "beautiful" face.

That was all the chance he needed. The Archer's swift hands picked off harpie after harpie with magic arrows and they fell to their deaths in the jaws of the rotagillas, sharks, and eels in the swirling waters below.

But while the Archer prince takes care of those harpie back up troops, the main Harpie Queen had a bone, actually several bones, to pick with one Dragon Master who dared kick her in the face causing bright orange blood to flow.

Just as Wufei heaves himself up onto the stone roof that Trowa was amazingly shooting arrow after arrow into each harpie, he hears a terrifying screech directly behind him.

The screeching, bashed up Queen was bent on his death and she sailed down upon him. Her black-grey wings were headed towards him, fangs and claws aimed for the kill...

Trowa's dagger was in his hands now. The wounded Wufei takes the offensive, rather than the defensive, attacking the creature and slicing her wing open. Black feathers are everywhere as her screams meld into a deafening cry. Anger, hatred and evil were all combined into one as she decides to end it all in a blaze of blood and gory revenge. She uses the last of her ebbing strength to make a flying pass at Wufei, claws sharpened and deadly, as they both fall down, down, down the scaly, stone crevices edge, to a certain death below.

And Prince Trowa was too busy with his own battles to be able to save Wufei this...

A sudden bursting wave of warm water gives the Dragon Master a boost up and something else, too. His wounds, immersed in the warmth, flushed out the arrow's magic spell, and allowed him to draw his own mystical weapon again.

"Get off me, Woman!"

Wufei calls out, shoving away the Queen, whose talons and claws were still digging into his skin as they both plunged downward. His pulls his sword, slicing the harpie's head straight off as the head and helpless body fall into the jaws of the waiting monsters below.

Once again, just in the nick of time, Wufei finds a rope dangling before him. He grabs hold yet again. His loner's soul just couldn't get used to all this friendly camaraderie as his climbs up to his rescuer above.

"We're done here, Wufei." Prince Trowa states with none of the triumph deserving of such inumerable enemies taken down by his arrow and sword alone. With yet one more roped arrow to the hill on the other side of the moat, Trowa rapidly skims across. His purpose, despite these momentary setbacks, was the same.

"Cathrine..."

He whispers it, but Wufei hears it anyway.

"Hmph!" The Dragonmaster shakes his head at the weak emotion called 'love' that bonded this human prince with one worthless fairy woman.

"What did you expect but evil women harpies to attack us! Just because they are EVIL WOMEN! That's why!" Wufei grumbles under his breath as he begins to cross the rope again, hand over hand style.

"Woman..."

Wufei lets the word seep into him, same as the warm water that had mysteriously aided him in his time of need earlier. The warmth was now seeping into his cold heart and broken soul...


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

"Mistress Sallie?" A tiny little voice tugs at both the subconscious and human form of the powerful Nymph of the Warm Waters, who had never quite before felt as completly powerless as she was now. She looked into the child fairy's frightened eyes.

"What is it, child?" Sallie's voice carries with it an inner strength she had found herself drawing from, out of a lost reverie, seeking out within the maelstrom of everything that had happened.

"Aunt Cathrine is still trying - but her healing powers don't seem to be working on these people here! They just won't wake up!" Marimaia exclaimed in a hushed whisper, her little mind not knowing what to make of it all.

When they had first stepped foot ( or wing) on the shores of this pretty land of Aissur, after that kind human had brought her tiny fairy self across to his kingdom's protection from the danger without, there were so many people all around!

Mariemaia, in all her young sheltered life in Eixip, had never seen so many beings in one place all at once, never so many guards and maids and serfs and... humans... so full of the same fears and hopes as she --- those hopes that rested on their King and Prince's valor to defeat the attacking enemy survivors to send them far, far away this peaceful land of beautiful Pegasus.

And Mariemaia had watched with wide fearful eyes as her new heroes disappeared from the hill on the other side, vanishing in a blinding flash of light. All those who stood against the evil villain were gone without a trace, leaving them standing trembling at the mouth of the palace's perimeter, alone and at the mercy of the evil ones about to overtake them. On top of that, the protective barrier shielding them was also coming down a layer at a time...

The brave palace guards could put up a return offensive attack upon the wicked Sorcerer they were cursing for stealing their beloved rulers from their homeland, but...

She was there.

Even through the shield, her eyes could penetrate, her eyes that could hypnotize, her eyes that could freeze one's soul with one glancing blow...

One by one the guards fell hypnotized by Sorceress Anne's mesmerizing gaze, as Lord Dermail's powerful blasts over and over finally cause the barrier to shatter and fall. Every guard inside as well were defeated.

Blow upon blow from Sorceress Anne's evilly glowing eyes, it seemed nothing could stand in their way. This evil Lord Dermail would soon rule over all. He could see it clearly in his crystal ball's mists--for capturing the sacred Pegasus was the second piece to his magical greedy hunger. The third and final puzzle piece to total world domination was only to be revealed when one sprinkled the sacred fairy dust high aloft the wings of the Pegasus. There was only one man in legend allowed to cross over into the land of Mythica...where the unicorn's golden horn was the key to giving this Sorcerer ultimate, unbeatable power to rule the world, no, the universe. He would find this man and make him do his bidding. Dermail cackles aloud as he stomps his foot upon the now unprotected home of the winged pegasi...

Nothing could stand in his way now---no mere water nymph, elf or fairy girl could stop him seizing the Pegasus above. That is no one, but one mere human Princess - and oh yes, the golden giant falcon that was at her command.

_Squawk! _

"Come on girls! All aboard! There's no time to waste!" Princess Dorothy comes soaring in on " her" trusty falcon, its honey golden wings opening up wide as Dorothy pulls Mariemaia and Sallie (along with Cathrine) aboard Valkyrie's back.

_What kind of name is that for such a noble beast? Well, we're just going to have to change that, won't we!_

Sorceress Anne's evil eyes were about to pull her evil shade of unconciousness over this weakWater Nyymph and her precious fairy pixies, but she was too late.

"Hey wait for me!" Hilde's nimble elf legs give her the extra hup as she leaps up, grabing hold of the fanlike tail of feathers and hanging on for dear life as the golden brown falcon, with Dorothy at the helm, takes off for the sky, up, up---straight up-- straight to the castle's tall peaks to the last sanctuary this castle possessed. The one final force shield erected in a crystallized dome was over where the Pegasus were stabled, where they nested and lived, in the roof, as the last gleaming of the sunlight's rays stray on the dome that opens up to accept one of its only three masters in.

Princess Dorothy in the back of her mind prays that she wasn't the only master left. Her two royal cousins who shared her allegiance to the Pegasus, had been stolen away from the land in a puff of light before her shocked and disbelieving eyes.

"Seal! Seal! Seal! Come on! I command you! " Dorothy jumps off the bird's back as she lands on the lofty green tiers where the Pegasi roamed, her long nailed fingers squeeze the jeweled necklace containing her third of the gem that allowed her unlimited access into her beloved world of winged horses---and the ability to shut all unwanted visitors out. The ones hot on their trail would certainly fall under the realm of the unwanted."

"Stop right there, foolish Princess! " Lord Dermail levitates up at a blinding speed. She wasn't able to get the dome to seal out the image of Dermail's fouly bearded face, crashing into its last obstacle on his road to power and glory. A road that he was confident he would overcome with smashing results-- given the time.

And time was something he was sure he had multitudes of. For he was in his evil glory, absolute that the so-called " heroes" of this fabled tale would never return again. He had sent them to certain doom of evil proportions.

"You may think you're safe in there for now, ladies. But not for long. No...hahahaha, not for very long at all.. hahahaha..."

Princess Dorothy looks to the other four females surrounding her. She saw their fear and hoped indeed that this shelter shield would hold against this evil wizard long enough for their heroes to return and rescue their damsels in distress. And if one golden haired boy to whom this falcon belonged didn't come soon, this damsel in distress may just have to take matters into her own capable and steady white hands as she pets the pegasus nuzzling at her in her slinky aqua and lace gown. The animals were blithely unaware of the danger hovering over them and Dorothy cast her worries into the rembrance of the sea of HIS blue, blue ocean eyes ...

...He was somewhere out there... Somewhere...

_Flutter, flutter _

Those eyes open.

The two suns that shone upon this world were expectedly hot on the boy laying motionless on the sands. The humid deserts were in the southernmost parts of the unexplored territories. None but the brave, bold and sucidal dared venture out into these forbidding clusters of desolate land.

The land was desolate for a reason, not a single human type of creature existed in these "death" islands. For even the most daring adventurer or nobleman never returned from his bold quest to explore these mysterious islands of the South.

And no one knew exactly why. Still to this day no one who kept their safe distance from these forbidden lands ever could explain how heroes and brave adventures would board a sea vessel across the seemingly calm and peaceful seas to arrive at the Southern Island so-named Sitnalta.

And never be seen alive again.

After several more centuries had passed ,the quests had finally come to a stop. Whatever evil that existed here could remain here. The defeated world outside had decided, and left the islands alone dormant, in its realm of dark secrets, all by itself...

Until today...

"Where... where am I?" Prince Quatre's big cerulean eyes flutter open, his questioning gaze was answered by no one, for not another soul was on this island-----at least not souls of the living type.

"Wa-wahh!" The blonde boy lets out a yelp, as his eyes in the sun come into focus, and now find themselves face to face-- with a human.

That is the skull of one.

"Who?----Where?----VALKYRIE!"

Jumping to his stocking feet, Quatre scurries back away from the dead remains laying in scattered pieces on the hot rough sand of the land he had been washed upon. He calls for his faithful sidekick to swoop in and take him away for this horrid nightmare, to awaken his peaceful heart from this dream and together fly away on golden wings to the clear blue skies where he had first encountered HER...again...

But his cries do not fall upon his beloved falcon's deft hearing range. The island of Sitnalta was too distant for even Valkyrie to hear his master's call. That evil Sorcerer had sent this golden Prince of Noxas to a wicked island filled land of torture. The heat from the blazing suns was nothing compared to what fire burned deeper within this volcanic isle. It was a fire that was both amazing and deadly.

But in his innocence Quatre was unaware of the no longer slumbering danger. He was only in search of aid and transport back to the Aissur palace where she needed to be rescued---where she needed to be helped. The fair Princess Dorothy needed to be rescued from the wicked ones attacking her castle. After all, not only was she beautiful, delicate, and gentle-spirited, but the alluring Princess was also the one betrothed to be his bride on the morrow...

But Quatre had not yet revealed that to her since his courage had failed him in the sea of her misty blue eyes. He considers this as he could do nothing but venture further into the damning sands on this wasted island.

Burning red eyes suddenly blaze open, sensing his imminent approach...

"It's been too long. Knowing the way my sister rides, we should have caught up with her by now." Millardo's voice was becoming edgier with every mile. His horse loses no time in galloping spiritedly at his master's beckon.

There comes no reply from the rider of the horse beside him. The two steeds ride neck and neck on the search for the missing Princess Relena who had only a few miles lead on them at most. The man known to Milliardo only as "Heero" seems to ignore the King of Sanc. His entire focused eyes were glued to the dark road before them. His gaze was intent and pentrating, looking for the Princess who had been left in his care and he himself had let go off on her own.

Her eyes had pleaded with his to allow her to stay and help her brother. Yet he had strayed from his job --- his mission --- and done what she had requested - because, because - he wasn't excatly sure what those crystal eyes of hers did to his driven soul.

_I won't let that happen again. I won't ever let my guard down again. When I find her, I'll..._

Even to his own mind, Heero shuts off all emotion or thought ---- all but his new mission --- to find his Princess and keep her safe. That's all.

_Mission accepted._

"We have to stop her before she gets too far..." Lucrezia, once the formidable and fiery Fire Nymph, finds herself breaking off sentences, weak against this King Millardo's perfect eyes and the stony set of his jaw. Her own wounded body was weak but she was gaining strength with each passing moment. His purity filling blood continued to mix with her cold emptiness.

He had insisted on carrying her the entire way, with the strength of his arms all about her. She wanted to be honest with him now, but with all her evilness in the past how could she fully face his goodness eye to eye?

"What is it you fear in Aissur, Lucrezia? You can tell me, you can tell me anything." His set jaw softens into a handsome smile, and Lucrezia falters under his gaze. She almost smiled back when-----

"So there you are, Fire Nymph." a woman's deep voice--one familiar to Lucrezia--shatters through the dark forest. The birds and woodland creatures scurry away from such a hateful, distasteful soul.

" Master Dermail was sure YOU of all his servants, with all your deep hatred and deadly desires, would not fail him in this simplest of tasks." Sorceress Anne phrases in her burgundy gown glowing in the still darkness. The spooked horses rear up and back away, for all beasts of nature recognize evil and danger.

"Oh, well," Anne sighs with a soft evil chuckle, "I guess its true, good help is so hard to find these days." Her laugh sends chills through their spines.

"I suppose though," her beglassed eyes give Milliardo a good look up and down, "some human males do have their useful purposes, so I can't blame you that much," the Sorceress laughs her wicked female wiles as she floats all the closer to where Lucrezia was wrapped in Milliardo's arms.

"What do you want, Sorceress? Dermail did not send me on a "task" here. I came of my own desire and will. And now I have decided that I desire something more fulfilling than revenge. I owe nothing more to one who doles out evil and preys on my desire for revenge. Nothing."

Though her powers as the once fierce Fire Nymph were now dampened by a human heart, Lucrezia could feel the fire rising in her blood still. It was reflected in her eyes, as they blazed out at Dermail's little waif sorceress, who had come to collect on a debt that Lucrezia had decided had already been settled.

"I said, I can't blame you." Anne's own eyes grow angered with a dull, sullen gaze. The perpetual smirk never leaves her unsightly face. "Now that you're part human though, I didn't say I can't kill you. But first---" Sorceress Anne was no fool. Her evil spectacles reflected out of the corner a bothersome foreigner's attempt to stop her with a petty little instrument that looked more like a child's toy than any tool her uncle had warned had existed beyond their reach.

So, she would just have to put both the man and his toy somewhere where they would never bother her again.

"Say goodbye to your lover, Nymph." Anne smiles at the torture she was wielding as she clutches a jewelled medallion in her long nailed hands.

Milliardo though, thinking the attack was on Lucrezia, covers her with his body as he steers the horse to run away. But, as this all happens in a split second, Lucrezia realizes the attack was not for her---but for him.

"I'll find her! I'll protect your sister with my life! I swear it on my love for you!" Lucrezia cries out in a desperate whisper, as, just as she predicted, Anne uses her space warping jewel to whisk both Milliardo and Heero away before a shot could be fired. It was just as her uncle had done before. She zapped them away to a place where evil creatures would surely destroy them. It left Lucrezia all alone with the Sorceress, with the pledged promise of love still on her lips...

"Sister? Does your lover have a sister?" Anne taunts with a sneer on her face that sets Lucrezia's teeth on edge. But what the Sorceress does next was far, far worse.

"Does she look anything like this - by chance?" A snap of the magic fingers and one fair haired blue garbed Princess Relena appears, floating in midair, right beside Anne. She was unconscious, obviously a victim of Sorceress Anne's evil eye.

"Let her go--! " Lucrezia finds the fire left remaining in her about to explode itself at the evil sorceress in anger but---

"Oh?" Anne lets the unconscious Relena fall, then stop short just enough to make the former Fire Nymph hold her fury in place.

"You hold her life in your hands, Nymph. Challenge me with your puny powers---and she dies. It's that simple." Anne knew she held a winning card here. Something in the once soulless, vengeful eyes of the Fire Nymph caused Anne to wonder suddenly what that mere human man could have done to cause such a change. But then again King Milliardo was not exactly a mere human man, was he?

That was why she was here after all, Nymphs were expendable--- however--- this Princess of the North was yet one more ingredient in their wicked magical brew...

Right again, Sorceress Anne congratulates her own sneaky mind, as the fire building in Lucrezia's fists fizzle dow. She hangs her head weakly in dejection and defeat.

"Correct choice," Sorceress Anne hums aloud, just as easily as she sent Heero and Milliardo away to who knows where just moments before, now she, along with Relena and Lucrezia disappear into the thick, dark air of night...


	23. Chapter 22

**"Once Upon a Wing"**

**Chapter 22**

**"Hello? Is there anybody in there?" A small timid voice echoes into a dark cavern, not a single sound answering him but the continual dripping of water plinking off the stalactite rock structure inside the blackened cave.**

**"There must've been someone here; recently, too." Behind that cute face and small framed youthful body was quite an intelligent mind. Prince Quatre grew up in the rain drenched isle of Noxas, spending most of his childhood safe indoors reading and rereading, over and over, stories of adventurous knights in far distant lands, always aspiring to one day be one of those brave heroes facing danger down without a stitch of fear.**

**And that one day has come today.**

**" Hello? - oh," Quatre continues to ask inquisitively, curious of the porcelain cups, and glassware that was seemingly abandoned only a short time ago, judging by the feel of the still hot embers of the firewood smoking in his gloved hands.**

**Speaking of hands, one large set of them comes from out of nowhere, as dark tanned fingers press a strong palm over Quatre's surprised mouth. After an useless struggle, the blonde prince ceases his panic, suddenly understanding why his silent attacker remained so. The other dark hand came to a halting warning as deep old eyes cautioned Quatre to keep quiet. And he does so, as does the dark skinned giant, tall and large man. Both of them remained stock still as if listening for something inside the cavern, something other than the plink,plink, plink, of some water dripping inside...**

**_Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch..._**

**Quatre's wide eyes grow even wider with each crashing crunch approaching from the cavern depths. They grew louder and louder from the utter stillness, louder and more foreboding --- until Quatre suddenly realizes the crunching to be none other than footsteps.**

**Humongous footsteps. **

**And a pair of damning red eyes behind them suddenly pierce a burning light through the dark cavern opening. **

**"Avana devil! Devil! Avana devil!"**

**The deep eyes match the deep husky voice, speaking in a foreign native tongue. Quatre finding his shocked self being tossed back as easily as one would throw a small snowball.**

**The tall gargantuan of a man draws a strange weapon, hanging on a twine wrapped around his primitive loincloths, that this prince from the civilized lands of Noxas had never laid eyes upon in his entire life.**

**But before the over seven foot tall native had a chance to fire this foreign three pronged weapon, the "devil" himself shows.**

**Quatre's big aqua blue eyes widen in fright as a monstrous black dragon's head emerges from the hole. Its first growl was a rumbling thunder and the only warning as to what was about to be unleashed...**

**"Mogata! Mogata!" The native cries out to his companions. Quatre just now noticed there were many----nearly forty----dark skinned native men suddenly appearing from behind the sandy rocks themselves, as if by magic.**

**Each was armed with sticks and staff weapons of simple bamboo. The tall leader was the only one who held the strange, y-shaped stick and stringed instrument.**

**"MOGATA! MOGATA!" **

**His voice calls out the obvious battlecry. Quatre found himself lost amidst the onslaught of mysterious unknown natives, who, in his eyes, were heroes rushing into their own deaths without a single look behind them...**

**Quatre watched in horror as one by one the natives fall, bravely rushing in with mere wooden weapons to their own slashed ends by the dragon's ravor sharp claws and vicious pointed teeth. They sacrificed their own lives to stop this terror from attacking their sand huts village, their lands --- and the ones they loved there. **

**He senses their worthy cause in the depths of his soul, though not understanding a word of their native tongue, nor they his Prince Quatre felt totally and absolutely intwined with these native people's quest for survival and peace in their simple lives. His soul understood the pain in each of their eyes--**

**So he would do all he could to help end their strife. **

_**Whoosh-- **_

**A blast of burning hot flame whisks past him, taking several more of the brave warriors down, either wounded or dead. Blast after blast of dragon's breath flame and only a few men were left standing. The tall leader who had saved Quatre before was among them. He continued to march along with the remainder of his men straight towards the evil fire breathing beast. The tall leader seemed to be waiting for something with every deft stride, watching for an opportunity of the dragon's inattention, as if waiting for the perfect shot for his 3 pronged sling...**

**Horrible sounds erupt from the throat of the black dragon as if sensed the imminent danger in the native man's hands, its scaly spined tail thrashed out at all the men around, mowing them down, including the dark skinned leader. His slingshot misfires and explodes at the cave entrance as rocks and rubble tumble down, causing a landslide. It closed the cave entrance and crashed down upon the dragon's smokey mouth, head and body.**

**"You did it! You did it!" Quatre runs to the big man, expecting a triumphant look at least on his wounded and battle worn face. But instead, the man's eyes were full of disappoint and fatigue.**

**"Nara, nara..." The man shakes his big, brown head in frustration. "Arana devil...arana..."**

**His weakening voice fights hard to keep talking. Quatre begged to understand what the man was trying to convey to him in his dying breaths----**

**And where words failed the ears, spirit and hope filled the understanding soul.**

**"...The dragon devil is not yet dead..." The man's spasmatic voice comes to Quatre's listening ears in perfect clarity now. No language barrier separated them any longer.**

**"As long as that evil is embedded upon its head, no mortal forces can kill him. This sacred weapon, created over the ages over the sands of Sitnalta, by our fathers, is the only power that can defeat this creature of darkness. Many have tried. I believed I, myself, could vanquish the hated beast attacking our children and villages by night. But as foretold, only the chosen one can defeat this dragon. Only one in a million. I knew I was not that one, but I felt I must try. For my wife and my new baby boy..."**

**The native man spoke with such truth, intense emotion and beauty that Quatre could not stop his compassionate tears that fell from his own eyes for the man that he felt so strongly and suddenly, as his comrade and friend. They had only met here, on death's battlefield, but it was enough.**

**"The dragon devil knows of this one way to destroy him, doesn't he?" Quatre looks deep into the man's injured eyes as the rocks and rubble, where the cave entrance once was, begin to stir once again, for this dragon could not be killed by stone alone.**

**"Yes, and he will kill to destroy it, before it destroys him." The native says in a gasping grunt of pain, trying to stand and fight the impossible enemy.**

**"But you're in no condition to fight!" Quatre shakes his head, helping the man back down as he stumbles. **

**"I must." The man says stalwartly, knowing it would be his death.**

**"What is your name?" Quatre asks suddenly.**

**"Rashid." The dark man answers proudly. "Son of the house of Maguanac."**

**"My name is Quatre, Prince of Noxas." He introduces himself and a steely look enters his eyes as he kneels by Rashid, clasping his large dark hands with his small, pale ones. He takes the magical slingshot from Rashid's injured grasp.**

**"I, Quatre, will slay this dragon in the name of the house of Maguanac, in your place, Friend Rashid."**

**The older man's wise eyes gain respect for this golden visitor from beyond as he watches Quatre stand, tall and courageous, before the red, glaring eyes of the devil beast himself.**

**"Zechs. Wake up. Zechs." The hint of urgency in the monotone voice beside him calls Milliardo back to the land of consciousness. But this was one place, most likely, nobody would be glad to awaken to.**

**In the dank darkness of a drafty, cold cavern, Milliardo lifts his soaking wet body up from the pool of water it had unfortunately been dumped into when the wicked witch had teleported the pair by evil magic away. **

**The name just called to him was unfamiliar, but the flat voice was unmistakable. Milliardo sat up in the darkness and wrung the foul-smelling, dirt filled water from his long, pale blonde hair as he turns to the speaker.**

**"I always told you you'd be better lopping all that hair off---just gets in the way." Heero comments to Milliardo's dishevelled face and now wide awake eyes which now adjusted to the lack of light. He saw a glint of...humor...in the captain of his royal guard's USUALLY---no, make that always---emotionless eyes.**

**_Well at least that's some emotion I got out of him._**

**The king allows his mind this one moment of sarcasm. His heart and soul tore themselves apart, piece by piece, as his consciousness slowly realizes what a nightmare was unravelling beyond his control.**

**"I should've done something! They're out there now! Alone, unprotected! Relena...Lucrezia...It's my fault! She's a vulnerable human now...my fault...Why am I still so weak?"**

**This brooding king shakes his frustrated head, swearing inside and cursing himself for not being strong enough to help them---to save his precious little sister and the beautiful woman he has come to love.**

**"Are you so sure that SHE wasn't the one who led the Sorceress right to us?" Heero's analytical mind puts his suspicions out in the open. He wasn't one to easily have faith in traitors.**

**"What are you saying!" But obviously, this king of peaceful Sanc was one for faith. The shock in Milliardo's pale blue eyes told Heero chapters of information about the man he was with.**

**"I'm just asking...How much do you trust that Fire Nymph?" Heero poses the question aloud, looking Milliardo straight in the eye. Both knew full well that perhaps the person both of them held in highest regard---their fragile and innocent Princess Relena---that her fate may be in that Fire Nymph's expertly wielded hands of porcelain.**

**A long second passes. Heero wondered if his fellow wet rat, drenched refugee was actually going to answer his last question or just simply continue to brood over it. **

**His blond brows were furrowed deeply and then, King Milliardo, finally does.**

**"Enough."**

**Short and simple. Heero admired that quality in a concise warrior. A decision made, whether right or wrong, on just your gut feeling was something.**

**After all, Heero was a firm believer in this one line that circulated through his head, over and over, even at this very moment, as the vision of a beautiful princess in blue was crying. She was weeping, frightened, calling to him in his mind...**

**_'The only way to live a good life is by your emotions...'_**

**Emotions were indeed the one thing ringing through her foggy mind. The Princess Peacecraft, all dressed in blue, felt much the same as her dishevelled honey-tan locks of hair and long gown looked, lying in a crumpled heap on a strange ground.**

**"Heero..."**

**The name whispered on her lips was not solely called to as by a royal ruler to her captain of the guard. But more as a simple girl whose heart was crying to her protector, her soulmate---the man she loved, though only in her confused state of unconsciousness did the stubborn minded lofty princess dare to think of this mysterious boy in any way other than her "hero."**

**"What a quaint name for your prince from the stars, Princess Relena." The voice of that wicked Sorceress Anne, makes Relena's aching head swim. The bells ringing inside her heart clanged to an ear-splitting stop. Her crystal clear blue eyes peer through the clouds surrounding them as she tries to focus on the Sorceress' face.**

**The ugly sneer at her upon it made Relena wish she didn't have to open her eyes. But open them she must.**

**"Where am I?" Relena's voice was small and frightened within the large throne room she had awaked on the cold marble floor of.**

**"Where? In the palace of the land once know as Aissur, little Princess." Sorceress Anne's cocky voice states with more than a bit of triumph and gloat as she walks with her dark maroon robes trailing long behind, to stand over Relena.**

**"What do you mean 'once known as Aissur?' What have you done to the royal family! Where is King Treize! He'd never let you harm his beloved people!" Stubborn and feisty when Relena got herself all riled up, she could do battle and spar with speeches as much as her royal status demanded of her. After all, Princess Relena had known Princess Dorothy's adored older cousin and noble ruler of this famed and beauteous kingdom since the two girls had been tiny, little princess playmates on Dorothy's own pet pony Pegasus.**

**"King Treize?" Anne's eyes flicker at the name that even this little princess of a faraway kingdom seemed to hold in such regard. That despicable man who dared touch her---who had the audacity to stand right up to her, in his handsome royal cape and gleaming golden crown, and kiss her blood drained lips.**

**It was something no man had ever done before, in her entire wicked life...**

**"What do I care of him? What do I care of HIS worthless people! NOTHING! He's unimportant, meaningless! Do not bring his name up again, worthless waif! I will destroy his kingdom, starting with you!" The fire with which Anne delivers the spitting, venomous words astound Relena, to say the least.**

**And the harsh hand which slaps her tender face, causes Relena to fear---and to wonder---at the snappy words of self-denial that the princess herself didn't understand. **

**But one former Fire Nymph did. Lucrezia's own scheming mind hatched a plot from what she suddenly saw in her former evil associate's glassy eyes.**

**It was the same something she could see reflecting in her own if she looked in the glass mirror.**

**"Calm yourself, Sorceress Anne." Lucrezia says from where she was strapped and mystic-bracelet bound from her own magic against the tapestried throne room wall.**

**"Why do you think it was I deceived that king of Sanc? Don't destroy the works of my evil hand for Lord Dermail's plans. He wanted the Princess Relena brought here by whatever means. Don't waste my efforts because of your well deserved anger, Mistress. Would Lord Dermail want you to jeopardize the key to this world's takeover due to your loss of control? Answer me that, Sorceress, before you kill her. But, in the end, I care not, either way." The Fire Nymph's fiery tongue causes both women in the throne room before her to pause in shock and doubt...and then consider her betrayal on betrayal.**

**"Then all of those promises back there? Of love for him and protection for her were all only deceit on your behalf? Am I supposed to believe that, Fire Nymph?" Anne chortles in her doubts. She found all this unimportant in the grand scheme of things. **

**And yet, there was something interesting in it for her cracked mind.**

**"Believe what you will. Revenge is a fruit that can be carved and sliced in many ways." Lucrezia shrugs with a convincing air of nonchalance.**

**Innocent minded Relena did not want to believe that his woman was only toying with her dear brother Millliardo's hard won emotions. But it all seemed rather obvious now. This Fire Nymph has utilized Milliardo's sympathy and depth of feeling for her own profit. This Lucrezia had deceived him, just to get to her! She tricked him with false promises of love, only to capture Relena and have revenge upon him.**

**"But...why...?" Relena asks, feeling her brother's unknowing heartache in her own. The tears began to roll down her face.**

**"Revenge. Plain and simple, princess. Revenge." Lucrezia repeats, her own sneer returning. "Slow and painful. That's how I'll make his torment---just as he caused me mine, eons ago. I will not rest until the king of the north is destroyed. And using his beloved sister for Lord Dermail's own evil deeds will begin the scarred road down his path of certain destruction."**

**The deep anger and venom was enough for Sorceress Anne, who had come to the conclusion, through the Fire Nymph's words, that nothing in this world was stronger than the bonds of hatred and evil----**

**And the burning desire for revenge, though the Sorceress herself was unsure of the Nymph's loyalty as yet.**

**"Indeed, indeed...Well said, Fire Nymph. And I see that the key to our puzzle has arrived."**

**Lord Dermail's soppy voice echoes through the hallowed throne room. Relena shrunk back in fear at the evil sound of it. **

**"The pegasus' final shield is about to fall. I believe it is only fitting that you should attend. Especially our precious visitor. Ha ha ha ha ha"**

**In Dermail's voice was a triumph that only spelled certain doom for the forces of good sheltered with the pegasus behind the barrier above. **

**"See to it, Fire Nymph. The Princess Relena's talents are required on the castle's rafters in the clouds. It will be another piece of your revenge. Ha ha ha. Come, Sorceress Anne. Our work is about to be finished here." Dermail's voice cackles, as his vast powers release the Fire Nymph from her bonds.**

**Sorceress Anne gives the Nymph a four eyed glare that was meant as more of a challenge than an invitation. Lucrezia took up the dare and grabbed Relena's wrist firmly, tugging her along and transporting them both away in a puff of fiery smoke, up to the rooftop.**

**Anne assures her suspicious mind as she follows their transport. They were all on the verge of witnessing the fall of the sanctity of Aissur's most precious commodity---**

**The capture and exploitation of the legendary white winged pegasi...**

"Mistress Sallie?" A tiny little voice tugs at both subconscious and human form of , the powerful Nymph of the Warm Waters never quite before feeling as completely powerless as she was now, looking into the child fairy before her frighten eyes.   
" What is it child?" Sallie's voice carries with it a inner strength she had found herself drawing out of a lost revenue, seeking out with in the maelstrom of this  
" Aunt Cathrine is still trying - but her healing powers don't seem to be working on these people here! They just won't wake up!" Marimaia exclaimed in a hushed whisper, her little mind knowing what to make of all the  
When they had first stepped foot ( or wing) on the shores of this pretty land of Aissun, after that kind human had passed her tiny fairy self across to his kingdom's protection from the danger without, there were so many people all around!  
Marimaia, in all her young sheltered life in Eixip, had never seen so many beings in one place all at once, never so many guards and maids and serfs and... humans... so full of the same fears and hapes as she - those hopes  
on their King and their Prince's valr to defeat the attacking enemy survivors to send them far far away this peaceful land of beautiful Pegasus.  
And Marimaia had watched with wide fearful eyes, her new heros disappear from the hill on the other side, vanish in a blinding flash of light all of those who stood against the evil villain gone without a trace, leaving them standing trembling at the mouth of the palace's perimeter, alone and at the mercy of the evil ones about to over take them, the protective barrier shielding them coming down a layer at a time...  
palace guards could put up their return offensive attack upon the wicked Sorcerer they were cursing for stealing their beloved rulers from their homeland, she was there. Even through the shield, her eyes could penetrate, her eyes that could hypnotize, her eyes that could freeze one's soul with one glancing blow...  
One by one the guards fell hypnotized by Sorceress Anne's mesmerizing gaze, as Lord Dermail's powerful blasts over and over finally cause the barrier to shatter and fall to, every guard inside too , before his weapon could blow upon Sorcess Anne's evil glowing eyes. Nothing could stand in their way it seemed, this evil Lord Dermail would soon rule over all he could see it clear in his crystal ball's mists, for capturing the sacred Pegasus the second piece of his magic greedy hunger, the third and final puzzle piece to total world domination only to be revealed to one sprinkled with holy fairy dust high aloft the sacred wings of the Pegasus, the only man it is written allowed to cross over into the legendary land of Mythica...where the unicorn's golden horns were the key to giving this Sorcerer ultimate unbeatable power to rule the world..no.. the universe... Dermail cackles aloud as he stomps foot on the now unprotected home of the winged Pegasus...  
Nothing could stand in his way now no mere water nymph, elf or fairy girl could stop him seizing the Pegasus above the. One Princess - and oh yes, one golden giant falcon at her command. Squawk!  
" Come on girls! All aboard! There's Princess Dorothy comes soaring in on " her" trusty falcon, its honey golden wings opening up wide as Dorothy pulls Marimaia and Sally ( along with Cathrine) aboard " Valkyris" back ( What kind of name is that for such a noble beast?) even as Sorceress Anne's evil eyes were about to pull her evil shade of unconsciousness over this weakly Water Nymph and her precious fairy pixies.  
" Hey wait for me!" Hilde's nimble elf legs gives her the extra hop as she leaps up, grabbing hold of the fanlike tail of feathers and hanging on for dear life as the golden brown falcon, with Dorothy at the helm, takes off for the sky, up, up, straight up, straight to the castle's tall peaks to the last sanctuary this castle possessed,- one final force shield erected in a crystallized dome over were the Pegasus were stabled, where they nested and lived, in the roof last gleaming of the sunlight's stray on the, dome that accepts one of its only three masters in.  
Princess Dorothy in the back of her mind prays that she wasn't the single one left, two royal cousins who shared her gifts for the Pegasus, stolen away from the land of the Pegasus in a puff of light before her shocked and disbelieving eyes.  
" Seal! Seal! Seal! Come on! I command you! " Dorothy jumps off the bird's back as she lands on the Pegasus's lofty green tiers, her long nailed fingers squeeze the jeweled necklace containing her third of the gem that allowed her unlimited access into her beloved world of winged horses--- and the ability to shut all unwanted visitors out. And the people hot on their trail would certainly fall under the realm of the ' unwanted."  
" Stop! Right there foolish Princess! " Lord Dermal levitates up at a blinding speed able to get the dome to seal out Dermail's foully bearded face crashing into it's last obstacle on his road to power and glory. A road that he was confident he would overcome with smashing results-- given the time.  
And time was something he was sure he had multuides of. For he was in his evil , absolute that so-called " heroes" of this fabled tale would ever return again, he having sent them to certain doom of evil proportions.  
" You may think you're safe in there for now; ladies. But not for long. No... hahahaha, not for very long at all.. hahahaha..."  
Princess Dorothy looks to the other four females surrounding her one of them mending her boy indeed this shelter shield would hold against this evil wizard hoping against hope be long enough for their heroes to return to rescue their damsels in distress. And if one yellow haired boy to whom this falcon belonged didn't come soon, this damsel in distress may just have to take matters into her own capable and steady white hands as she pets the pegasus nuzzling at her in her slinky aqua and gown, blightly unaware of the danger hovering over them, Dorothy losing her worries into the sea of his blue, blue inner ocean eyes ... Somewhere out there... Somewhere...  
Flutter, flutter those eyes open. The two suns that shone upon this world were expectedly hot on the boy The humid southern parts of the unexplored territories. None but the brave, bold and suicidal dared venture out into these forbidding clusters of desolate land.  
The land was desolate for a reason, not a single human type creature existed in these death types of islands became inhumans to be. For even the most daring adventurer or noble ever returned from his bold quest explore the mysterious islands of the South.  
And no one knew exactly why. Still to this day no one who kept their safe distance from these forbidden lands ever could explain how heroes and brave adventures would board a sea vessel across the seemingly calm and peaceful seas arrive at the Southern Island so-named  
And never be seen alive again.  
After several more centuries had passed the quests had finally come to a stop, whatever evil that existed on by the defeated world outside, alone dormant in its realm of dark secrets, all by itself...  
Until today...  
" Where... where am I?" Prince Quatre's big cerulean eyes flutter open, his questioning gaze no one answered, for not another soul was on this island's and lands - at least not souls of the living type.  
" Wa-wahh!" The blonde boy lets out a yelp in the sun eyes focus under his slashed head, his seeing eyes now finding themselves face to face-- with a human.  
That is the skull of one.  
" Who?- Where?- VALKYRIE!"  
Jumping to his stocking feet, Quatre scurries back away from the dead remains lying in scattered pieces on the hot sand of the land he had washed upon. He calls for his faithful sidekick to swoop in and take him away for this horrid nightmare. Awake his peaceful heart from this dream, fly away on golden wings to the blue skies where he had first encountered her again...  
But his cries do not fall upon his beloved falcon's deft hearing range, the island of Sitmalter too distant for even Valkyrie to hear his master's call, that evil Sorcerer's sending this golden Prince of Noxas to a wicked sand filled land of torture, the heat of the blazing suns of what fire burned deeper within this volcanic isle a fire that was both and deadly.  
But in his innocence ( Can't read the rest that well have to ask Chloechan)

"It's been too long. Knowing the way my sister rides, we should have caught up with her by now," Millardo's voice was becoming edgier with every mile his horse loses no time in galloping spiritedly over. There comes no reply from the rider of the horse besides him, the two steeds riding neck and neck on the search for the missing Princess Relena who had only a few miles lead on them at most. The man known to Milliardo only as " Heero" seems to ignore the King of Sanc, his entire focused eye glued to the dark road before them, his gaze intent and penetrating looking for the Princess left in his care that he himself had let go off on her own. Her eyes had pleaded with his to stay and help her brother and he had strayed from his job --- his mission --- and done what she had requested - because, because - he wasn't exactly sure what those crystal eyes did to his driven soul. I won't let that happen again. I won't ever let my guard down again. When I find her, I'll- even to his own mind, Heero shuts off all emotion or thought ---- all but his new mission--- to find his Princess and keep her safe. That's all.  
Mission accepted.  
" We have to stop her before she gets to far..." Lucretzia , once the formidable and fiery fire Nymph, finds herself breaking off sentences, weak against this King Millardo's perfect eyes and the stony set of his jaw. Her own wounded body was weak but she was gaining strength with each passing moment his purity filling blood continued to mix with her cold emptiness.  
He had insisted on carrying her the entire way, the strength of his arms all about her. She wanted to be honest with him now, but with all her evilness in the past how would she fully face his goodness eye to eye? but- " What is it you fear in Aissan, Lucretzia? You can tell me, now his set jaw softens into a handsome smile, Lucretzia faltering under his gaze, she almost smiled back when-----  
" So there you are, Fire Nymph," a woman's deep voice one familiar to Lucretzia shatters the dark forest, birds and woodland creatures scurry away from such a hateful, distasteful soul.  
" MAster Dermail was sure, you of all his servants, with all your deep hatred and deadly desires, would not fail him in this simplest of tasks." Sorceress Anne phases in her burgundy gown glowing in the still darkness the spooked horses rearing up and backing away. For all beasts of nature recognize evil and danger.  
" Oh, well," Anne sighs with a soft evil chuckle, " I guess its true, -- good help is hard to find these days," her laugh " I suppose though, her be glassed eyes give Milliardo a good look up and down, human males do have their useful purposes, so I can't blame you that much," the Sorceress laughs her wicked female wiles as she floats all the closer to where Lucretzia was wrapped in Milliardo's arms.  
" What do you want Sorceress? Dermail did not send me on a " task" here. I came of my own desires and will. And now I have decided that I desire something more fulfilling than revenge. I own nothing more to one who doles out evil and of my revenge. Nothing."

Can't read the rest of this paragraph. Need Chloechan's help.  
" Sister? Does your lover have a sister?" Anne taunts with a sneer on her face that sets Lucretzia's teeth on edge. What the Sorceress does next worse.  
" Does she look anything like this - by chance?" A snap of the magic fingers and one fair haired blue garbed Princess Relena appears, floating in midair, right beside Anne, unconscious, obviously a victim of Sorceress Anne's evil eye.  
" Let her go--! " Lucretzia finds the fire left remaining in her about to itself at the evil sorceress in anger but---  
" Oh?" Anne lets the unconscious Relena fall------- then stop short just enough to make the former Fire Nymph hold her fury in place.  
" You hold her life in your hands Nymph. Challenge me with your puny powers--- and she dies, that simple," Anne knew she held a winning card here, something in the once soulless only revenge filled eyes of the Fire Nymph caused Anne to wonder suddenly what that mere human man could have done to cause such a change. But then again King Milliardo was not exactly a mere human man, was he?  
That was why she was here after all, Nymphs were expendable--- however--- this Princess of the North yet one more ingredient in their wicked magical brew...  
Right again Sorceress Anne congratulates her own sneaky mind, as the fire building in Lucretzia's fists fizzle down, she hangs her head weakly in objective and defeat.  
" Correct choice," Sorceress Anne hummes aloud, as just as easily as she sent Heero and Milliardo away to who know where before, she, along with Relena and Lucretzia disappearing into the thick, dark air of night...


	24. Chapter 23

**"Once Upon a Wing"**

**Chapter 23**

**"Shouldn't we be, like, doing something?" One anxious little soul wonders aloud. She didn't like the state of affairs one bit. After all, was there no place of sanctuary and safety anymore? If this shining kingdom, filled with human soldiers and knights, couldn't protect their own precious treasures, then what safety was there for her--a simple woodland elf girl, hmm?**

**"I mean, something other than cowering and hiding in fear while some ugly old sorcerer throws spit darts at us!" Hilde stands up defiantly from the crouching position she and the rest of the people gathered were, well yes, cowering in fear from Duke Dermail's attacks on the forcefield barrier that kept her, Mistress Sallie, Cathrine and Mariemaia---and, oh yes, HER, the Princess Dorothy, protected inside with the pegasus that the shield guarded, safe and secure.**

**---To a point.**

**"Can't you do something, Mistress Sallie?" Hilde turns to the one amongst them who held any power at all. Well, Cathrine the fairy could heal people and such, but what good was that kind of magic to shoot back at that nasty old guy?**

**"Yes, please say you can! I'm scared of him, too." Mariemaia pipes up from behind them. "And so are my new friends." The orange haired fairy child hugs the equally frightened head of a wee foal pegasus to hers. The usually skittish winged horses found solace and comfort in Mariemaia's gentle touch, feeling somehow...connected---bonded---to the little fairy waif as many of them crowd around her. **

**"I wish I could, little ones. I wish I could." Sallie's voice was full of self-recrimination at not being able to protect her precious fairies well enough in the end. She felt so weak and helpless up here, high in the clouds, so far away from her waters below. **

**But one scan of the frightened faces surrounding her gave her the courage to go on----**

**That and a tempestuous man's voice inside her head calling her a 'weakling.' That was something Sallie would never capitulate to.**

**"All right. Here's the plan. Listen carefully, everyone. It's up to us." Sallie's low toned voice takes charge of her senses and the situation both. The four girlish beings gather around her and listen with rapt attention. They each knew that what she said was their last hope between escape and infinite doom.**

**"One more blast of evil energy ought to do it. This shelter's shield will surely fall. Sorceress Anne, you may have the pleasure." Dermail says. **

**He found his own pleasure in reinforcing his apprentice's lust for evil. His soul purpose in life it seemed was to cause the spread of endless evil darkness with his soulless soul.**

**"Yes, sir." Sorceress Anne nods, as she stiffens and pushes the mystic glasses further up the bridge of her nose as if she were relying on them for strength of purpose alone.**

**---Or was it her own symbol of vengeance against the Sovereign of this castle's treasures about to go down at her hand? **

**Without a word more, her long red-nailed fingers send a torrential blast of dark energy directly towards the translucent forcefield. Her spectacles gleam as the shield fizzles, falters and finally, falls. It dissipates into their evil victory and she and Dermail set foot inside the much protected realm of the Pegasi...**

**"Come out, come out wherever you are, little fairies..."**

**_No need to play games with Uncle Dermail..._**

**The bearded magician strokes his whiskers almost amused that these silly children would attempt to play 'hide and go seek' from his masterful self. **

_**Ahh, they'll be found soon enough... Heh heh**_

**He shakes his head with a chuckle, turning to the pair behind him. **

**"Bring the Princess Relena here, Fire Nymph. We will require her powers of peaceful persuasion here on the Pegasus. Her kind are fabled to have a calming presence over creatures and animals such as these winged beasts." Dermail orders, leaning a frightening face in Relena's direction as he leads the group towards the stable that the foolish fairies and prancing Pegasi were no doubt taking refuge in against the inevitable.**

**"My...kind?" Relena whispers. Her brother, Milliardo, had kept from her any otherworldly power either of them possessed. Relena had been too young a child when their parents, the king and queen of Sanc, died in a terrible seastorm accident many years ago.**

**"The legendary Tsificaps of peace from ancient days? The fabled fairytale creators of this mystical and magic world? Surely your elder brother has not kept you entirely in the dark of this family secret?" Dermail giggles, enjoying the shock and disbelief on Relena's once serene face. **

**"Ahh, not to worry your pretty little head, princess. You need not be aware of it. But, your unparalleled purity will certainly be enough for your powers to shine through----that is, when I direct them to, of course." Dermail pats Relena's cheek, knowing that with her legendary powers to control the animals, the sought after Pegasi would kneel at his dark robes in submission.**

**Or so he believed would happen, and it would, that is, if he could catch them.**

**A dizzying flutter of pounding hooves and flapping white wings suddenly break through, filling the air high atop the castle on cue just as the evil Sorcerers were close enough to unseal the stable doors.**

**But Mistress Sallie had other plans.**

**_Fly, children! Fly to safety! You must find Mythica---our last vestige of hope and refuge. Fly swiftly!_**

**From her mind, Sallie projects the watery waves of thought to the escaping girls on winged horseback. The Pegasus flew as never before, sprinkled with a little fairy dust, to flap untiring wings until safety was reached. Sallie had found no other solution to this situation than to let her precious ones fly away from her. The prayer for their safety by others' hands was on her unmoving lips.**

**For Sallie, in this moment, must conjure up all of her powers to make a mystical miracle reality.**

**"Waters of the clouds, hear your Mistress beckon! Torrential rain, hear my plea!" Sallie's deep voice bellows as her hands reach up. She became translucent again as the blue light seen in her see-through eyes was a defiant sight before the evil sorcerers right in front of her.**

**The skies obey her desperate command and open up with a loud crackle of thunder, blowing thrashing winds, tearing at the castle's turrets and everything present upon the cascading wall of harsh, pelting rain. It denied Dermail the opportunity to send even a single blast through the watery "shield" at the Pegasus and their riders, allowing them to escape his evil ambitions to freedom in skies far away...**

**For the time being anyway as wings flapping on fairy dust and pure hearts take off, away in the deep skies.**

**"Enough of this nonsense!" Lord Dermail's wicked voice rises above the cacophony of winds and rains pounding at the castle's eaves, at the Mistress of the Element's command.**

**The sorcerer levitates towards Sallie's tempestuous storm, so encapsulated was she in wave after wave of blasting water. His own force inhibitor was set on full strength and Dermail continues to hover, however slowly, forward, despite Sallie's attempts to keep him back.**

**"Stay...away..." Sallie fiercely warns, throwing everything she had in her at this evil man. She knew full well that when she fell---and it WAS when---Dermail would immediately give chase to capture the escaped Pegasi and her fairies if they didn't reach safety sometime soon.**

**But how long was it until 'sometime' came? Sallie hoped it was extremely soon. Her powers were faltering despite her best efforts. The dark magician was too powerful for even her. The waters were growing fainter and thinner with every energy sapping step Dermail was taking towards her.**

**"With the mystical energies I've been gathering, added to my own vast powers, I must applaud you for how long you've stood against me, O Water Nymph. But, enough is enough, don't you agree? Fall graciously, if you must, but please, do fall."**

**Lord Dermail sends one final blast of raw, evil energy at Sallie and the mistress of waters does fall and fall hard. The storm dissipates quickly as does her energy. She sinks to the ground on her knees before the victorious Sorcerer's smile.**

**"Thank you." Dermail smirks snidely. "Sorceress Anne, go after those fleeing pegasi! They can't have gotten far. Keep track of the fairies as well. We may need that extra live dust to use on our guest, especially that pure fairy woman. The fools are playing right into our hands. Don't lose track of them, but remember, keep out of sight." He says with a gloat, staring at Sallie purposefully as he speaks of her fears so smugly.**

**"And the others who escaped with them?" Sorceress Anne queries as she levitates upwards towards the dark, cloudy skies. **

**"They are expendable----at your own discretion, my dear." Dermail cackles, knowing that Anne's 'discretion' meant certain destruction for the elf and human females, as her dark crimson robes fly quickly after the escapees, out for blood today, it seemed.**

**"Fire Nymph!" Dermail bellows to his minion, who, heretofore, had gone unspoken and unnoticed. Her fiery hands were still tightly clenched on her captive Princess Relena's shaking shoulders.**

**"Lord Dermail." Lucrezia answers humbly enough.**

**"I, too, will be taking the fair Princess Relena now with me to follow the Pegasi to Mythica, so I will be leaving this little matter of the Water Nymph's disposal to you. Deal with it properly and catch up with us later. Those are my orders, do you understand?" Dermail grasps Relena's arm with his palm, feeling the very embers of her peaceful Tsificap bloodline pulsating from her. The power unrealized here on the Pegasus would still indeed be called upon for the Unicorns of legend. His main goal was to command and lay siege of those creatures infinite vast powers most of all. **

**"Understood." Lucrezia nods as the Sorcerer disappears with Relena. So many thoughts were burning in her heart as she takes a step before her sister Nymph---the sparring partner she had long ago been forged to battle with in the continual struggle of nature's fiercest elements. **

**Fire and Water's endless battle.**

**Until it would all end, here and now...**


	25. Chapter 24

**"Once Upon a Wing"**

**Chapter 24**

**"Are you sure this is the way to the place Mistress Sallie told us to fly to?" The curious elf inside of Hilde questions all humans and this blonde haired vixen of one, didn't quite garner all her trust as of yet, as she hangs onto her flying pegasus' white winged back for dear life.**

**"Yes, of course it is! This jewel points the way. Just hold tight and don't fall off your steed." Princess Dorothy commands sharply. Her royal self was quite accustomed to commanding lesser beings as she holds up the pendant piece of the jewel tied around her neck---the jewel that her brave cousins had recovered and brought back from yet another of their quests. King Treize had wisely split its tremendous power into three jewelled segments--one for each of them.**

**And there, the third piece, was secured around Dorothy's neck, just in case. Now that the "just in case" had come, Dorothy was the only one left of the trio to direct these seeking refuge in the lost world of the mystical land of Mythica.**

**"Keep heading south! Come, Pegasus!" Princess Dorothy lifts a magic flute to her lips. It calls, with its golden strains, the winged horses to hurry their flight and stay close to her steed's lead in their escape.**

**But one little pegasus was finding it hard to keep up with the stronger beasts of the bigger, more matured pegasus.**

**Mariemaia, seated firmly on one of the larger faster stallions saw the tiny foal lagging behind the others. Impulsively, she leaves her own safe and speedy ride on one of the leading stallion pegasi, to take flight on her own fairy wings to rescue the trailing baby horse.**

**"Mariemaia! What are you doing? Stay on your pegasus! Oh, what is she doing? Please turn around and get her back, Mr. Pegasus!" Cathrine sees her little ward's fairy wings flutter in the wrong direction and attempts to converse with the horse, who could not understand a word she said. She wanted to turn back herself to retrieve the child, but Hilde was quicker. She saw Mariemaia's little fairy wings could not hold up both the orange sprite and the exhausted foal, as both sink into the forest trees below.**

**"No. You have to keep going, Fairy! YOU can't be captured. I'll go get Mariemaia and we'll both catch up. Keep goin'! After all, these ARE my woods." Hilde grabs hold of the riderless pegasus' reins that Mariemaia had abandoned and she bravely turns back to fetch the fallen fairy from the treetops she had just disappeared into.**

**Just then, just as Cathrine was about to protest, an explosion of fire and flame overtakes the castle of Aissur's rooftops. The stables and safe refuge of home that these noble pegasi once knew, was devoured by the swirling red and orange lights on the horizon. There was no point in return now. They had to continue their quest forward to peaceful pastures, somewhere out there...**

_**"Don't look back, Cathrine. You have the duty to reach safety, for you are the last of your kind..."**_

**Mistress Sallie's last words ring in Cathrine's shell shocked ears.**

**"Don't you even THINK of leaving that pegasus! You heard Mistress Sallie! Don't look back, you hear!" Dorothy could sense Cathrine's urge to turn back in her very veins---so she does what she does best---take charge of the situation.**

**"Here! Take this. It will show you the way." Dorothy lifts her magic pendant's chain around her own neck and slides it onto Cathrine's auburn curls. "This is MY amulet. It will protect you on your journey to Mythica, as well." Dorothy gives both mystic amulet and the pegasus one final command. The amulet then forms a force-shield, much like that of the one that once surrounded Aissur's rooftop--the Pegasus sanctuary--now around Cathrine and her flying horse.**

**Dorothy whispers the order to the pegasus to fly to Mythica as swift and sure as their wide wings could take them----and not be separated from the fairy rider--the precious cargo on their back, until they arrive.**

**The forcefield would stave off any attacks from the outside and at the same time, would keep Cathrine aloft the winged steed on the inside.**

**"For Prince Trowa's sake, I do this, Fairy Cathrine. It would make him sad if anything happened to you. I know my cousin well." Dorothy's usually crafty eyes were full of kindness as she smiles. She and the golden falcon she had escaped with, turned off in the opposite direction from the flock of pegasi who now traveled into the Southern hemisphere without her.**

**_Not so far away..._**

**"What's that light?" The Dragon Master's voice sounded strange, even to his own ears, for not a word had been spoken for the miles and miles he and his fellow traveller had silently traversed upon.**

**Neither of the men simply had nothing to say up until now. But now they both had something, all at once.**

**"Aissur Castle!" Prince Trowa gasps at the sight of his home on fire at its peaks. His home--the home of their precious Pegasus--and the last place he'd seen someone else, now also precious to his heart, before he and this Dragon Master were teleported away, to the Far East, from which they had trekked, at all possible speed, back.**

**But they only found the worst possible welcome upon their return. The archer takes off on his long legs, racing towards the fiery tower ahead.**

**"No, I was referring to that amulet thing glowing around your neck all of a sudden. But I suppose the castle on fire can take precedence over that." Wufei's off-handedly comments to himself in sarcasm, shrugging his tanned shoulders, though Trowa was long gone already.**

_**Perhaps that woman is in the thick of battle. This should be interesting...**_

**Wufei feels driven to witness anything that "certain woman" was involved in. Something about that Water Nymph's warrior nature had inspired him to take to his own feet to run and watch her, and maybe be lucky enough to take part in whatever battle was raging...**

**"Geez, this guy talks too much!" Duo, the elf, had never heard someone rattle off at the mouth so much before, in his entire woodland life. He obviously never listened to himself or counted his own tongue-rattling skills.**

**By now, he felt like he knew this entire human's life---from childhood to kinghood---like the back of his hand.**

**_This King Treize sure can prattle on and on about adventures and quests and castles and horses and pegasus-----Sheesh!_**

**Duo's own lips had, long ago on their walking journey, conceded to this orator's superior talking skills and clammed up his own big mouth to precious silence, miles and miles ago.**

**Not that Treize's tales had slowed them down any. Duo found, with quite a bit of surprise, that this mere human was actually pretty good at cutting through short cuts and making dashing bounds through the bushes and trees that Duo elf-like aerobatics naturally lent his nimble body to. In fact, in a way, though dull and tiring at times, with his endless stories, this human named Treize was actually not too shabby as Duo had expected a high and mighty king to be.**

**He could even be funny sometimes. Duo considered the king before him as they both take a well-deserved rest against a tree stump before going on.**

**"Here. Have an apple." Duo could always astound Hilde by magically producing apples with a quick sleight of hand.**

_**Maybe that'll shut him up a spell...**_

**"What an amusing fellow you are, Duo. Yes, well..." Treize eyes the raw, unprepared fruit in Duo's proffered hand with curious eyes. "This reminds me of the time my brother Trowa and I went to Crete in search of the Golden Fleece---"**

**Treize begins to prattle yet another daring tale as Duo rolls his eyes when the human male takes the golden apple in his hand and toys with it as he speaks, frequently tossing it up in the air---**

**And catching a fairy child in its exchange.**

**Mariemaia tumbled from the sky right into his surprised lap.**

**"Ah, hello again." Treize can't help but smile at the orange fairy's cherub like face, looking dazed and disoriented up at him.**

**"Ohhhh! You have to catch my--my---my---" Mariemaia stumbles on the words in her dizziness as a tiny pegasus comes falling right behind her, landing SPLAT! in a mess of tiny hooves, head and wings, on Duo's unhappy head.**

**"----horsey? Yup, sure, got him." Duo answers drolly. His wilted elfen ears droop at the little foal's weight upon him.**

**"How did you come to join this little fellow?" Treize asks, as his most gentle touch caresses first the foal, who was happy to see his master, and then the fairy child's orange mop, when a sudden blast of dark energy razes at the treetops above.**

**Duo finds now the little fairy plopped on top of him as well, as Treize passes her over, jumping up and producing a swift sword in his majestic hand.**

**"Go, elf Duo. Hide my treasures as only a woodland creature can." The king orders and the respect gained for this quick-witted, pointy-eared boy not going undeserved. Duo, Mariemaia and the squealing baby foal, disappear from the tree stump they were upon in a flash of green, and flying brown braid.**

**Treize stands, sword at the ready, as his eyes scan the sky above. The flash of the explosion in the distance and a sudden palpitation in his heart make him clutch the ambient medallion chained around his neck into his hand. He didn't need to look at its bright pulsating light to know that its owner had changed hands. One of the three of them who held the stone pieces in their care no longer had it in his or her possession.**

**_Brother...? Cousin Dorothy...?_**

**His mind had no time to ponder the unwelcomed situation. The explosion on the hill in the distance could only mean one thing---**

**The one thing in the world he dreaded most...**

_**Aissur...The Pegasus...**_

_**Neigh, whinny!**_

**The whimpered call of his winged horses were nearby and crying for his help. King Treize brought the soundless whistle from his pouch to his lips. It was their master's call for the pegasus to come under his protection.**

**"Hey! Where are you going, Pegasus!" A young girl's voice calls out, obviously no longer in control of the winged horses descent through the trees. "Whoa, whoa, whooooooaaaaaaaa-----"**

**"OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!"**

**Hilde gives out a scream as she is unceremoniously dumped from her flying escort's back onto the woodland ground, but she has no time to ache about it as another red energy blast comes within mere inches of singeing her cute little, elfy----**

**"Come, woodland maiden. It's no longer safe here. We haven't a moment to lose." Seeing the incoming evil about to track them down in this vulnerable position, Treize dashes over and scoops up Hilde from the ground. He was determined that she would be far safer with him, up in the clouds, than she would against the energy of whatever evil was attacking her and his pegasus in this confined forest area. **

**Besides, this diversion would give Duo and the fairy child ample time to make a getaway. That little waif's safety was terribly important to him, though he knew not why.**

**Breaking through the treeline atop the pegasus steed Hilde had brought, Treize directs his winged beast straight up to utilize his speed most efficiently. They get up so quickly that they shoot by, unnoticed by the four eyed Sorceress' evil search.**

**But Sorceress Anne DID feel something, though less for the hunt of the two stray pegasus and their fairy and elf riders, and more of the stirring in her chest where a woman's heart might have been.**

**For every mystical sense as well told her that her target was close---**

**That HE was close.**

**But the dark clouds in her soul still veiled him from her.**

**_No matter. We do not require anything but the purple fairy with all those Pegasus en route to Mythica. Those stray ones probably perished in my blasts. Ah, well._**

**Anne was just about to turn and leave when she hears...something...**

**Her cunning mind tells her wait, though she gives a pretense to leave and disappear, hidden in the treeline. **

**_Perhaps they did NOT perish. This could be the more advantageous means..._**

**"I came to fetch Mariemaia when that Sorceress woman attacked me! Is Mariemaia---?" Hilde asks when Treize's hand releases over her mouth.**

**"She's safe with your friend." Treize answers, his eyes floating over to Aissur in the distance. The battle there also seemed to have come to an end---one way or the other.**

**He decided there was nothing more he could do there as he sensed the conflict had moved on and away from his kingdom.**

**"We had to escape from them at the castle! Sallie held them off long enough for us to get away. Me, Mariemaia, Princess Dorothy, the fairy and all the pegasus! We were on our way to Mythica." Hilde quickly spills her guts out. She felt like she could trust this heroic human.**

**"Then, that is where we must head as well. Pegasus?" King Treize queries to his steed and it nods back at him, taking off toward Mythica with one final stop to pick up Duo, with Mariemaia, waving to them in the tallest treetop along the way.**


	26. Chapter 26

**"Once Upon a Wing"**

**Chapter 25**

_**Where is it I'm going? **_

**The Princess Dorothy questions herself suddenly. She finds herself awakening from a trancelike spell through her misty indigo eyes. It was somewhere distant, over the southern ocean somewhere...familiar...and yet she had never seen this place before.**

**Her heart feels a strangeness overtake it as never before. It was a feeling indescribable in words, except perhaps...**

**A gentle wave of wings were set aflutter in her heart and in her soul as if she had come here in search of something she both feared and longed for.**

**Something out there that just had to be revealed to her closed heart.**

**It was something she wanted so badly, that she would do anything to grasp it in her hands. Her grip grew tighter around the feathered mane of the huge bird she was flying upon, letting Valkyrie and her heart carry her to the sought after unknown which was called her destiny.**

**In comparison to the black shadow the ebony dragon cast, the boy of sunshine gold never did feel his own shadow as one very long for this world. He was an observer of brave soldiers, a reader of courageous knights and a dreamer of valorous heroes. Never would he believe that perhaps today would be the day that he, Prince Quatre of Noxas, would be all of the above himself. **

**And though Quatre always believed himself to be a man of peace--for the crimes of fear and torment this dragon had set upon the island's villagers, upon the innocent lives here, and for his new friend Rasid--he would do this.**

**_For your honorable name, I can do this Friend Rasid. At least I'll try, even if it kills me._**

**Chasing the dark scales that were once again attempting to make their timeless journey out in the sunlight to wreak havoc every one hundred years on the world outside, Quatre tries to recall every daring quest, every heroic effort, every valiant rescue and sword fight he had ever read about.**

**And in every one of those fairy tales, the hero slayed his ferocious enemy dragon with a broad sword plunged deep into the evil creature's reptilian heart. But Quatre was never allowed to carry a sword. His father was a peace loving man who could never understand his son's desire for adventure. So Quatre merely looks down to the weapon in his hand, giving the three pronged, y-shaped wooden stick a dubious glance.**

**"Um..."**

**He gulps down hard as he pauses with the doubt now standing mere paces from where the black dragon's swishing tale was scattering sand across the beach front's fragile coral shelves that were the only thing barring him from diving into the depths of the sea and travelling to land beyond with his destructive, fiery breath.**

**"Here goes!"**

**Quatre takes action with one final thought of the tanned, brave owner of this three pronged instrument. He believed in Rasid's courage---and secretly hoped that courage and bravery were something that could rub off on him enough to accomplish this impossible task. **

**"Hey, YOU! UGLY!" Quatre cries out defiantly, slinging a rock at the creature---and unpleasantly shocked to discover the dragon does not go down.**

**The dragon's full attention was now on this little 'bug' bothering it. It's scaly neck does a 180 without its huge body even moving an inch.**

**"Um...I mean...Mr. Dragon? Sir?" **

**All the defiance slips away under one penetrating red-eyed stare. Quatre takes one look and scurries as fast as his legs could carry him down the beach and away and----**

**_So much for bravery..._**

**But the dragon was faster than his enormous size seemed capable of. Quatre found himself scrambling to crawl up the high coral reef ledges that had built themselves up over time in the low tide.**

**But could a fragile coral reef withstand a monstrous dragon's breath of pure fire?**

**Let's find out...**

**"WAHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Quatre lets out a screech as the coral disintegrates beneath his feet. His slim body barely escaped much the same treatment from the dragon's fanged and fiery mouth. It's sharpened teeth bit hard down upon the cliff's edge, but the sand and coral bits in its mouth were a poor substitution for the flesh of a live creature.**

**Quatre drops down to the sand below and runs away straight though the monster's thrashing legs and tail. **

**_I've got to do something!_**

**Quatre's mind screams at him to be more courageous and heroic---like the men in his books. This running around in circles was not very inspiring, to say the least.**

**The dragon didn't seem to be dizzy though Quatre himself was, by now.**

**"What do I do, Rasid!"**

**His heart cries out, feeling somehow that the older man was watching him from far away, hoping for his success and survival.**

_**'The weapon was created ages ago---in the sands of Sitnalta by our fathers. It is the only way to kill the immortal devil, and only the chosen one...only the chosen one...and only at the right moment...'**_

**Rasid's words were echoing in his head and they reverberated at this moment in Quatre's soul. He looks up to the sky, closing his eyes for a second with the mysterious weapon clutched in his sweaty palm as he dodges yet another blast of fire and flame deftly.**

**Throwing sand into the dragon's dazed eyes, stunning it for a moment, Quatre bounds up the cliff reefs again. But this time, he could feel there was purpose and a plan in his soulful, aqua blue eyes.**

**With a prayer on his lips, Quatre finds the target too difficult to take aim at--too quick in motion---too dizzying from the heights he was usually afraid of.**

**But the chant in a language he did not understand begins to echo deep in his heart, his mind, his soul. He closes his eyes again, in deep reflection.**

_**'Mogata tenilra, mogata tenilra, mogata tenilra'**_

**"Mogata tenilra----the devil's heart."**

**Quatre's eyes snap open and they scan the huge body of the dragon---the heart of which, if it even contained one, so deeply buried beneath its scales---that Quatre could not even hope that a simple stone pebble from the rocky cliff's edge could penetrate its skin, let alone kill it. **

_**'Mogata tenilra, kanubi'**_

**The chants echoing in his head answer his doubts as his eyes flutter closed yet again.**

**"The devil's heart is...it's crown! A crown? The devil's crown?" The young man's eyes open, all was being revealed to him visually as the head of the dragon-beast nears. It's red eyes glowed, assured of the tasty treat standing frozen still before its pointy, drooling jaws and it was about to pronounce sentence as executioner...**

**"The devil's heart!" Quatre shrieks aloud triumphantly, fearlessly, courageously. He lifts the small pebble from his hand and sets it in place in the sling of the magical slingshot. Closing his eyes as he lets the shot go, straight and true from the heart of a believing soul.**

**The soul of one in a million, in one moment of time. **

**Even as the dragon's razor sharp fangs enclose the entire small figure within its jaws and forked tongue, drooling for the taste of blood...**

**He doesn't flinch, he doesn't pull back. He doesn't even open his crystal eyes as the smile never leaves his pure face. Prince Quatre's courage and defiance in the face of imminent death and danger was unwavering. It was the kind of bravery that would shame many a fierce warrior or knight with the courage that stemmed from a deep strength of belief in truth and pure faith in goodness from within.**

**For those feelings of purity and truth were what truly the fathers of Sitnalta intended their mystical weapon to be powered by. The emotions of a true hero---that only one in a million in the world possessed the strength of character within---the ability to believe in something, no matter what the odds...**

**And the tiny pebble's impact was transformed in that moment to that of a fiery boulder. Its aim from a pure and true soul, hit its mark.**

**The devil's heart was in its crown indeed. The pure black gemstone, forged long ago by evil was seared off with the powers of a slingshot and its owner.**

**The huge entity's shadow rears back from the ledge in agony. The dragon's deafening roars and screeching dissipated into particle dust, as the stone attached to its forehead slips off. Both it and the tiny pebble that had removed it from the fierce dragon, fell to the sands below through the thin, empty air.**

**The dazed and drained dragon slayer falls exhausted as well from his heroic efforts from the cliff above. The dragon's fangs had not touched him and his cloak of goodness.**

**The smile never leaves his innocent lips as he praises God above for this triumph. He didn't take the credit for himself as his expended human body joins the jeweled remains of what was once a vicious dragon, that he, Prince Quatre, had slayed.**

**He falls to the rocky crags below, to a much deserved rest in peace. **

**"Oh no, you don't!" Princess Dorothy was not about to let this one go, though. She was high atop Valkyrie and arrived just in time to be the only live witness to this valiant knight's victorious, single handed slaying of an ebony dragon that would dwarf ten others combined. Dorothy never before imagined such a man existed in this world, who could conquer not only vicious monsters and evil creatures with his hands alone, but also her own delicate heart.**

**"I don't care if I AM pledged to marry some fool Prince tomorrow! I don't care if the marriage will join our two kingdoms together! Who needs all that when I have you?" Dorothy states defiantly, tossing her hair back as Valkyrie swoops down. Dorothy catches the descending boy in her arms.**

**"You know, I don't even know your name, you silly boy." Princess Dorothy muses, touching the blonde boy's beautiful pale cheek lovingly before Quatre's voice can reply.**

**His fluttering heart joined his fluttering eyes with one gaze upon his fair rescuer.**

**"But I do know one thing, brave soldier, courageous knight, valorous hero," Dorothy pauses, drinking in the sea of his cerulean aqua eyes. Her hands caress through his sunshine gold hair. "I am going to marry you on the morrow---and there's not one thing you can say to change my mind about that. Don't even try."**

**So Prince Quatre doesn't. He asserts his acquiesence to her forceful proposal with a fierce kiss of his own. Both blonde heads were bowed to each other as Valkyrie's wings flap off into the sunsetting sky.**

**A lone figure, who also witnessed today's victory and trials, a bearded tanned man, known as Rasid, signals a wave from the cliff's shore, as the entire island of Sitnalta sinks beneath the ocean's currents, its ancient mission finally completed by a legendary hero.**

**It was lost to the world, once again, for all time, as the black jewel sinks away into the sands beneath the sea...**


End file.
